Connie and Di

This is a completely irrelevant picture from a few weeks ago of Son and Nearly-Daughter-in-Law doing press-ups in the garden. I like it for the expression on Cassie's face. ("I shall sit here to be companionable but I am completely ignoring these ridiculous postures into which you are arranging yourselves.")

And I came across a nicely irrelevant comment in my exam marking. Candidates are answering questions on passages about the Olympics. One of the articles compares the Olympics to the rainforest because of their "biodiversity" - many sports, many different nationalities, etc. No animals are mentioned. To explain this comparison, one girl wrote: "Pandas wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the rainforest." Which may well be true, in some everything's-dependent-on-everything-else sort of way, but didn't get her any marks.

I've been reading Joyce Grenfell's diary of her wartime travels with ENSA in the Middle East, when her digestion tended to be a bit upset from time to time. In her ladylike way, she was sometimes "rather Connie" (constipated) and at other times, "somewhat Di" (the opposite). Di is still residing with me, though rather more quiescently than previously. My poor old mum, very much Connie, is having indignities done to her person and is now on a drip, nil by mouth. So no cups of tea - a real deprivation.