Monday, March 4th .....

We moved the van today.  A group was meeting in the pavilion so we decided to move on.  As usual, it took most of the morning to get packed up for the journey of 500m down the road to the free camping spot.  It seems we arrived at just the right time, as we had first choice of a number of great spots.  We chose a grassy area adjoining a very nice garden and we're very content.

It's the Rotary club's birthday tomorrow night and Marilyn and I went along to lend a hand in setting up.  My instinct is to allow the nominal head of the group, in this case the president of the club, to take the lead but others don't think,that way.  So we ended up with at least three bosses, all talking at cross purposes which increased the amount of work to be done and added to the stress levels.

Years ago, Gilligan from the TV show, used to say, "I'm running away to become a helmet."  We often think like that, too.

I'm finding quite a bit of time to read at the moment and am working through a collection of what I gather is called Scandi-noir - books by Scandinavian authors.  I've just finished Black Skies by Analldur Indridason, who is from Iceland, of all places.  Some of their names are fantastic: Viktor Arnar Ingolsson, Henning Mankel, Leif GW Persson, and so on.  Stieg Larsson certainly started something.  I heard a British author moaning the other day that even second-rate books by Scandinavian authors are being snapped up for TV series while home-grown stuff is being overlooked.  Sounds to me like sour grapes and it  might be because so much British crime fiction has become so formulaic.

Another British author who was in Australia recently was Stella Rimington.  I hadn't realised that she was one-time head of MI5 and, during the 1984 Miners' Strike in Britain became notorious for tapping the phones and bugging the offices of miners' union officials. Just not cricket, old chap.

She must hate it when she's trying to promote one of her books and the interviewer keeps harking back to those trying times.  Be sure your sins will find you out.