It's lilac time

What a wild day it has been. The wind has been constantly noisy and branches have fallen from quite a few of our trees. Some of the lilac blossoms also fell, so today seemed a good day to cut a few for ourselves.

The perfume is very strong. We are not superstitious so I can bring lilac into the house. Apparently it is associated with death because it was used to line coffins to mask the odour of decay.

I did not go on my planned walk. I was the hairdresser this morning, washing and setting Mum's hair for her.

This afternoon I went to the Hay Book Festival. It's my first time and the first time the festival has been digital. There were glitches. The first talk for me was Gloria Steinem and there was no sound on my iPad. I had to move to the pc and then all was OK. There were buffering problems with my second talk. Naomi Oreskes talk was "Why trust Science". I liked her but I thought the questions did not get to the heart of the issues.

I'm now listening to Wordsworth, with poems read by some wonderful actors. Initial buffering meant that I nearly switched off, but now all seems settled. Wendy North is here too and there are thousands of listeners. What an amazing event.

Brian (across the road) has a birthday today and Margaret brought us two generous portions of chocolate cake with rasps. Mmm.

I hope you like my rather dreamy lilacs. I used my recent image of reflections to make one of the textures.