Three bloggers who are recording happy things -- Anisa writes about her time in Madrid; words and pictures on Posterous by Imperfect Pages; and Gillian over at Sky Blue Pinkish.
1. We wake up to Radio 3 playing Ae Fond Kiss, one of Robert Burns' love poems set to music. This is followed by the wedding march from Handel's Midsummer Night's Dream, which was our processional music.
2. Anna comes over to lunch. She brings a stone bead set with a tiny compass for Alec. "I think it might be a watch chain charm," she says. "It's for his cabinet of curiosities. With parents like you he's bound to have a cabinet of curiosities." I think it will also keep him pointing in the right direction, and I'm looking forward to helping him fill his cabinet.
3. I finish The Missing by Tim Gautreaux, which I have enjoyed thoroughly. He manages to make a sad and frightening subject luminous. A floorwalker who dreams of playing jazz is indirectly responsible for the kidnapping of a three-year-old girl, and joins the crew of a Mississippi paddle steamer to look for her. It's a southern gothic story of redemption that has a lot in common with Annie Proulx's The Shipping News - one of my favourite books ever.
