Yesterday almost reverted to average boredom - but not quite. I went and bought the posts my neighbour needs, all £3.70 of them, again the agricultural supplier requires quite a bit of extraneous chat. Get the poles loaded in my car, they have to go in the back seat and poking through to the front. I have an estate car but as my dog's cage takes up the whole of the boot everything else has to go in the back. Decided it would be wise to deliver them to my neighbour first, rather than go to Prestatyn with them on board. It's odd but in the thirty years I've lived here this is only the second time I've been down to his house. His track is mostly tarmacked but the last bit is two hairpins and a plank bridge over the little river. He is almost as far below the road as I am above and I am fascinated by the view from his yard as it is the same but totally different from this perspective. It gives me a chance to look at my 6 acres of conifers and see how they are growing, which you can't really do as you drive alongside them.
In my post I've received a book which will be an integral part of my portfolio. You may remember that Liz mentioned my passion for Christopher Isherwood and he is going to be half of my theme. A book of his lectures when he was teaching in California about writing was due to be published last July. I thought a review of this book could be one of my offerings. However, I have been having messages from time to time from Amazon about delays in publication and I was beginning to get anxious about it. I consulted American Amazon and found that it was now due to be published on the 28th December in America. I was calculating whether I would get it in time for 18th January when I received an e-mail from English Amazon that it wasn't going to be available here till March. Doom and Gloom. But while trolling through the American site I found mention of a book about CI I hadn't heard of before. A book of previously unpublished letters to his mother 1935 - 1940 (published 2005). I got a used copy and am well over half way through it and it will fit my purpose even if it is a bit specialist. It's fascinating reading the actual letters when I know of the events from his own recollection and those of his biographers.
To revert to the place I live I am adding a piece I wrote a couple of years ago about my track and my post:

Leaving Home

As I sat reading my post I smiled to myself and envied no one else in the world. Had I won the lottery, been appointed to a top job or received a proposal from an eligible man? No, I had just driven down my track from the house to the by-road leading to the road.
A pleasant grey day, not cold, after all it was the first week in July. As I backed out of the gate then closed it against marauding sheep, I looked across my overgrown garden resolving that to-morrow I must get out the strimmer, billhook and hedge trimmer. To-day I would just admire the peonies, fuchsias, escallonias and beyond them the passionflowers and honeysuckle once again swathing the outhouse with greeny-purple new growth and creamy yellow flowers.

As I headed downhill I caught a flash of ginger brown and there was a young fox disturbed as it drank at the spring. In a flash it had jumped back turned a few steps down the track and the scrambled up the bank into the field then through the fence to disappear into the bracken beyond.

Below the first gate the bracken and ferns had now unfurled from their early curled spikes and were forming bright green sentinels on either side. There were brambles poking new shoots into the open space above the track, another job for the trimmer.

As I dropped down toward the copse round the old quarry I slowed down as an old ewe and her lamb hesitated on the track, I didn’t want them to run all the way down to the road. With good sense, so rare in sheep, the ewe turned up the bank into the trees with her lamb bundling after her. As I drew alongside the copse a pigeon clattered out of the trees in alarm and a buzzard slid into view above. The pigeon jinked back into the trees as the buzzard sailed on.

At the bottom corner I drew to a halt and collected my post from the post box. It easier for the postman having the box beside the road. He used to be able to drive up to it and put the post in before backing down again. However, one of them, known to drive our country roads like a maniac, managed to demolish the post that held the box. My kindly neighbour straightened the box and fixed it to a young sycamore tree. The fact that the postman now has to get out of his van to deliver my post causes me no grief at all.

Before driving on I sit and go through the post and read anything interesting there and then. How dull it would be to have post plop on to the door mat or to drive straight on to some suburban road outside my front door.