We have our offspring visiting for the May Day holiday weekend, what is left of it following, what should have been a travelling schedule of 9.5 hours; first by bus to the station and then by rail with a connection or two thrown in for good measure.

The last train north was previously timetabled to arrive at 21.00hrs. It could never make the target time, it was usually out by 20 -30 minutes and it's record was about 45 minutes late. Of course, that does not take into consideration anything more serious than normal weather conditions, or situatons that you would ordinarily think a train could and should be able to cope with. Passengers have been known to get stranded when brakes had 'iced' up at a period when temperatures were ABOVE freezing! We waited for arrivals till after midnight for that one.

The timetables were changed last year with a 30 minutes later arrival time for the last train. Guess what - we got a phone call telling us the train was running late, they were in the back of beyond, so no clue as to how much longer we would need to wait.

We were very surprised to see from our vantage position by the station platform, that there were people in the street placing luggage in car boots and yet no train had arrived. I commented to hubbie that maybe one of the City Link buses had arrived and had disgorged its passengers. Our second major surprise was to see the familiar outline of our offspring walking towards us.

Oh yes, there had been a coach; those passengers travelling to our station were taken off the train at a junction further east and bussed to their destination, thereby enabling the train to arrive at its last station on the route with a reduced, late penalty arrival time...

There we were, driving south to the city (if I lived in London I would never have dreamed of driving the equivalent of London to Cardiff return, often in one day) and we are just approaching the confines of the entry roads when my husband suddenly cries out "Look there's a red kite." I thought this was an interesting and unusual place to be seeing kites and I peered through the windscreen, nose almost touching it; a kite, where? I couldn't see a kite of any shape or form, let alone with the colour red. I said as much.

"Not a kite" said hubby, "a kite". "That," I said, tersely, "is what I am looking for and I don't see one, where is it?" He points. I see a dark fluttery object in the sky above with quite a wide wing span which has feathery ends that look like spaced out tips, a long-ish retangular tail and guess what, the tail - it's red. In quick succession, I see four more of those... birds!

It's an ornithological education travelling around these parts.

1973

It was October and I was heading for the A3 road in South London to get myself and my friend back to the south coast. It was late, nightfall had set in and I took a wrong turn in an area I did not know. I found myself driving through a quiet road with comfortable looking suburban houses and shadowy trees on either side.

Ahead, I spotted a lone walker and drove a short distance past this person then braked. The car window was opened, I leant across my passenger so I could ask for assistance with directions.

A thunderclap could not have shocked me more; the face that appeared in my car window was that of my younger brother! At that point in time, he had dropped out of family life. I truly did not know where he was to be found nor had I seen him for a very long time. We had an animated chat, exchanged contact details and I obtained directions onto the right road.

We did not lose contact again from that day to this.

Today, I came across what struck me as two wonderful descriptions that conjoured up a range of images. I wonder if they will do the same for you?

From a writer and poet who steals moments to work using her laptop on a sliding shelf in her kitchen; when done the shelf is returned to its discreet position. She describes the sliding shelf as:

"The altar of writing."

In literature the clergyman's daughter who has, with the man in her life:

"A subjunctive relationship"

Reading one of the daily newspapers today, I was struck by the amount of carnage it reported on Scotland's roads, in particular the A96 to Aberdeen. An RAC quote placed in the centre of the article informed that 'everyone was getting to where they wanted to go'.

The best egg ever! One year we produced a Humpty Dumpty egg for my brother. My job was to put the base colour on the egg, a large one, and find a suitable container for the theme. I boiled the egg in a food colourant. My sister, a talented artist even then, set about creating a Humpty Dumpty egg. I found a pottery egg cup that was perfect for the job. It was already lightly coloured and had a low rectangle piece attached to the cup. The egg cup and the rectangle soon became a double-stepped brick wall. Bright-faced Humpty was placed 'on' the wall and duly wrapped up to be given to my brother. He was really appreciative of this Easter egg.

Our Humpty never fell of his wall, nor did he ever have a great fall. He sat on a mantlepiece where he remained in place of high reverence, unfaded, for many, many years.

I am just about to go and wrap a a birthday present. It is half done. Tissue is wrapped around the items to protect them and that is as far as I have got.

But, I have had a brainwave: today, I received the most gorgeous bouquet, it was sitting in a sculptured vase, placed where it would make major impact on me when I entered the house. What I initially saw was a huge happy Cellophane wrap with large psychedlic pink clovers on it supported by lots of subtle swirls finished off with a satin white bow with more similar pink designs on it;the greenery and flowers peeked out of it.

It was a super presentation but I had to undo it and set the flowers in water. They look really lovely. My brainwave: I am going to use the masses of cellophane and wrap the birthday present in it, using the enormous bow, if I can, for the finishing touch.

A 65 year old woman was fined for crossing the road too slowly - what next!

Sandhurst's raison d'etre is that "...When the Prime Minister wants something done, he calls in the army. " (Keegan.J)

So, there was no plagiarism after all according to the learned judge. I could have handed down that judgement without the panoply of the courts and the press. But then, that's really what the fuss was all about was it not; there was no use creating a performance without ensuring the interest of a huge curious audience. Two of the three authors of the book Holy Blood and Holy Grail sued the publisher, Dan Brown author of the Da Vinci Code was accused of plagiarising their work and then following judgement called Brown's writing inferior. Tough! He's been the successful one in terms of sales and wealth creation and presumably, comparitively speaking, they have not.

Who will gain from this very public tantrum; the publisher who published both works, as his sales have been enhanced with the extra publicity, undoubtedly Dan Brown's writings, and, last but not least, the authors of the Holy Blood and Holy Grail have their 1982 work revived and re-published in paperback (prior to judgement) and it is already out in the book shops.

Great! - following my last blog on the changing times of our clocks I see I have adverts for all sorts of worldy clocks that wouldn't have made the slightest difference to me ...