The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it*

My fledgelings have flown the nest; they've dared to spread their wings and fly (damn, now I'll have Summertime knocking around my head for the foreseeable...) and I wish them all the very best in the world.

The mother, mind, I had to boot off the balcony. I'm very sorry, pigeon, but you've raised one lot successfully, and I need to keep the Hausmeister's wife sweet.

A very definite change of season, here; I spent yesterday cycling and walking around the woods, and whilst the heat has not yet quite gone from the sun, I felt a tang in the air, the occasional whiff of smoke, and in the breathless silence ripe nuts were falling from the trees. Leaves are starting to change colour, the world turns...

There's even talk of starting rehearsals for the Offenbach this week! Hooray! (Although I am - curious? - to see what the staging will be - the make-up artist I talked to while she was painting and powdering and primping me for my photo shoot grinned and whispered - verrückt. This basically means totally insane, and considering how many German stagings are bonkers, you'd have thought they'd got used to it by now, so for her to grin like that... hmm! Let's hope that (a) it's crazy enough to be funny and (b) I get to hang on to enough clothing not to scare the audience to death...)

* Marcus Aurelius. What??? I binge-read the thrillers in English I fished out from the library, so the Meditations it is.