A birthday gift:

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
~Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat

More flower quotes here and another picture of the flowers.

A new addition to the family (alas, not here but my stepson and the granddaughters up north):

And stamps on a birthday card from Qatar (click to biggify) - notice that the first stamp is circular, what a lovely idea - I can’t remember any British stamps being round?

…a new animation featuring a friendly hippo, this time by Pierre Coffin (possibly for Mac Guff Ligne). Anyway, this hippo’s name is Pat and he’s accompanied by Stanley the dog. [Forum discussion here.] So let’s all go whim-away to the lion sleeps tonight. [Huge thanks to Graeme for the link.]

New readers might like to go visit our other favourite hippo, Kozo’s Thong song.

Kozo!

Yes, I know I’ve linked to Mr Kozo before but new readers and googlers who can tear themselves away from the B.eeny’s b.oobs post might not have experienced the joy that is Kozo. Go on, off you go.

Testing a new beta version of TypePad when I should be working. Ahem.

Finishing the shopping at Sainsbury’s, treating ourselves to a couple of lattes at Starbucks and sitting on the river bank on a warm Sunday morning. Bliss.

Standing at the sink scraping baby Jersey potatoes for supper (reduced to 50p a bag at Waitrose), watching the sunset, the dogs playing and the sheep keeping a wide berth of the back fence. And listening to The Archers.

A much awaited saucepan rack (£12.99, TK Maxx) which means I won’t have to go grovelling at the back of the bottom cupboard every night.