Global Warming may have plus points

It's hardly Ikebana, but it was fun to be able to go out into my garden on St Valentine's Day and pick both a red rose and a bunch of snowdrops. When I lived near Aberystwyth some years back, there was an annual discussion about whether we would get daffodils flowering locally in time for Gŵyl Dewi on March 1st or would have to import them from foreign climes like Pembrokeshire or even Cornwall. However, when I made a foray to the National Library two weeks ago, the gardens there had at least one clump of daffodils in full flower, so well advanced that they will probably be over before the day comes. Plenty more on the way, though.

Book Clubs are good for you

OK, I admit it. The picture isn't actually from our reconnaissance at Borders, but we did have fun.

Sarah, Mike and I turned up as agreed, then discovered somehow that the theoretical start time was 7:00 rather than the 6:30 we were psyched up for. By 7:15 still nothing was happening and Sarah went into masterful mode - most impressively - and stalked off to find out why. It seems that the Book Club idea had been set up by the manager, who then went off sick without informing the deputies this was the night...

In the meanwhile, one other potential member, Adam, decided that we looked like a Book Club, so came over and introduced himself. A quick check of the other drinkers in Starbucks produced two more, Kate and another Sarah, so we were six and decided to go ahead with or without Borders.

We were lucky that we clicked immediately with the other three, and we began to discuss what on earth a Book Club was and how we would run ours! At this stage, a Borders manager came over with serious apologies for the confusion and collected our email addresses so that his boss could get in touch personally.

We got back to discussing books. How we are going to run it is still up in the air a bit, because with any luck new members will join and make your/their contribution - and if they are like the initial six, then it will to be a 'safe' and welcoming environment. (First Thursday of the month, 6:30pm in the Starbucks coffee bar at the back of Borders first floor!)

We agreed our interests were in reading both current and classical fiction, but we would not decide on titles too far in advance. People suggested possibilities, and the delight of meeting in a bookshop was that we could pick them off the shelves and discuss them! We came up pretty quickly with a short-list of six, but it could easily have been longer.

Our agreed first choice for this month became Daphne du Maurier's Jamaica Inn, with the back-up of Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox for fast readers. 'The other Sarah' is a librarian, and a fount of knowledge on what books people are reading and enjoying, and she suggested the Maggie O'Farrell.

So, all in all an enjoyable evening and I'm looking forward to the next one. Our new friends were very interested to know that we are in a creative writing group, but we ducked telling them why they probably wouldn't qualify for ours!