Leaves & kids

I just watched four leaves fall and spin to the ground, one after the other. I wondered how they 'know' when to leave the tree, what is their precise moment. My cousin's nine-year-old was here last weekend and asked if she could rake. (I can't rake and always get others to do the leaves.) The feisty wee girl that she is got two piles of leaves. Her four-year-old brother 'helped'. It was warm enough to sit out with coats and my cousin and I had coffee in plastic cups and Hula Hoops while the kids worked. Then they started to argue over whose pile was whose and the rakes went back in the shed. After dinner, I was telling my cousin about the Pope and her girl drew this in five minutes. She is a wee talent.

A deluded Baroness

I'm over my Pope moment and back to being an 'aggressive secularist'. Still overdosing on Lemsip and menthol pastilles. Still angry - and insulted - at Sayeeda Warsi talking crap on Newsnight, saying that people of faith are more likely to donate to charity and do voluntary work. (I undoubtedly succumbed to a massive relapse of ME as a result of doing voluntary work in London in late 80s, and have volunteered periodically during stages of my illness.) I can make dodgy, spurious claims too, Baroness, and I would like to suggest that people of faith are more likely to be racist, sexist and homophobic. Looking forward to Stephen Hawking on Channel 4 though I am so muffled with cold, it is hard to absorb much.

The Pope just went past my flat

The most surreal event. I am addled with a stinking cold, and just woke up to helicopters, I knew they must be for the Pope, but I had no idea his route was coming up here. I opened my living room curtains to see the streets lined with police, and the Pope went right past a few mins later. It feels dislocating, like a hallucination. He just looked like a wee man with a tartan blanket round him. I softened towards him for a few minutes. This really was pure street theatre. Bizarre.