Edited down to this

There are forget-me-nots like billy-dos elsewhere. But I salute this plucky guy anew from a vertical standing.

My driving licence is renewed with an eyecheck and ‘so, you’re alright then’ from the medico. €105 for the priv.

For what it’s worth, plucky Blifotos, I’m listening to the entirely believable Naxos recording of Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose in the English translation by William Weaver. I’ve been reading about the dissolution in England, Wales and Scotland and wondering about the aching strange glory of Melrose. There is a novel by Margaret cook - ex of St Robin the ethical - that conjures the Soutra Aisle abbey on the edge of the lammermuir hills that is both atmospheric and I believe as historically accurate as one can speculate but for a sense of the monastic life hemmed in by interval and external strife Eco is brilliant. He wrote his undergraduate thesis on St Tom of Aquinas and was a medievalist on and off throughout his really illustrious carer in semiotics.