Sunday - various

Finally, the thunderstorm that has been promising to appear for the last couple of weeks has finally done so, improving the local mood no end in spite of torrents of monsoon-like rain. I've been in the shop, working on various manuscripts (my own and other people's) and aiming for a quiet evening tonight: we have a joint of lamb and it's starting to look like an evening for a roast... I have been spending most evenings this week in an outrageous and decadent manner: catching up with the boxed set of Coast. Although we did go to the pub last night.

Readers of Facebook will already know that yesterday was brightened by the appearance of a skunk - on a lead held by a woman who runs a ferret sanctuary. She let me hold the skunk, who promptly fell asleep with his feet curled around my necklace. In disentangling him, a ring worn by his owner got tangled up with one of mine, creating a knot of women and skunk in the middle of the shop. He was very sweet. They are not native to this country so we rarely see them outside zoos.

I have been reading Jack Parson's Freedom is a Two Edged Sword - known as the 'James Dean of the occult,' Parsons was a remarkably character - a follower of Crowley and ceremonial magician who was also a rocket scientist at Pasadena. He died in 1952, having blown himself up. I'm not wild about the libertarian cast of his political essays, but he was an interesting individual.