Tuesday 7th May

 Spring seems to be playing a kind of hide and seek; alternate sunny and grey rainy days. Today was a sunny day. When I went out for half an hour this afternoon it was lovely and warm. I picked a handful of chard to have with our supper.

I've been speed reading Rory Stewart's account of his walk across Afghanistan, through ever more and remote villages. He has reached a region where the women are not kept quite so separate from the men, and even join in a little with the conversation. 

I might not finish it by tomorrow. I might not finish it at all; every so often there is a description of some act of breath-takingly barbarous cruelty, worthy of a horror movie. I'm hoping I'll forget those bits quickly. You have been warned!

I'm left with a series of snapshots of a beautiful but unforgiving terrain, shaping an equally harsh society, full of contradictions. How did anyone ever think this could be made into a single unified country when so much of it is inaccessible through the cold seasons, and the villages are so remote.

Cross stitch continues. The words I chose for the first side almost filled it. There are two phrases; a short Latin tag and the translation. I started the Latin as far over to what was the left (actually the bottom of the whole thing), and then with great concentration did the English version working backwards from the right (top). Phew. By adding the width of a few letters it all fitted with a small decorative motif to separate them.