Boxes

Boxes.

So many boxes.

That's one of the drawbacks of buying from Amazon and other online retailers.

I suppose high street retail involves boxes too but surely not so many.

I recycle as many as I can. I reuse those I can (and always try to keep a stock of smaller ones in the garage for putting birthday and Christmas presents in) but I'm afraid an awful lot of them end up on the bonfire. I just did a big burn. It's such a waste.

Three Unrelated Things

1 The fifth anniversary of our move to Kent went by earlier this month without us noticing. Ailz still looks up the weather forecasts for Oldham- partly because her mother still lives there and partly because it's gratifying to see how much warmer and drier we are down here.

2 There's a Royal Wedding coming up at the end of the week. It's all over the media. My mother is sitting in front of an afternoon TV show in which Michael Buerk talks about royal cakes. Once upon a time I'd have relieved my feelings with a little light satire, but I'm tired of satire. It achieves nothing. Dictators hate it- because paranoia goes with the job- but when has it ever affected anything in a democracy?

3 Tom Wolfe has died. His most important work was done in the 60s and 70s and his most famous work in the 80s. At his peak he may have been the best writer in America. He wrote about hippies and astronauts and yuppies- and other quaintly amusing historical types. What a long time ago the 20th century is.