Mr Blue Sky

Today's sky was gloomy and grey (and as I am about to post this it's actually snowing again!!), but yesterday morning we had a perfect sky of the most brilliant blue without a single cloud in it! The lack of really tall buildings here makes the sky seem big, I am sure I never really noticed it as much in London. I spent the morning constantly crossing the road to walk in the sun, it was great to feel its warmth (and hard not to walk into anything when the temptation to walk with my face sky-ward took me)... At the time I was searching for a present for a friend when I came across a shop selling this beautiful hand-printed Japanese paper. As I was about to place an order from my usual supplier in London (I need it for end-papers for a job I am working on), it saved me waiting for it to turn up! It obviously also made me think of Japan and the hell it's going through right now. We have donated money, but it just seems like such a small gesture, and I spent the rest of the morning resisting the stupid urge to hug every Japanese tourist that I saw, and tell them how sorry I was at what their country is going through.

On a much happier note, one of our visitors came to see us unusually bright and early this morning, maybe he's on nightshifts at the moment! He had better not be eating any bulbs...!