King Charles III

We just had two days of full-on summer - 30 degrees feeling like much more - and now it's going back to a normal springtime. Which is a relief, because I haven't even had time to bring out my summer clothes yet. Plus good weather is important because my beloved daughter is throwing a birthday party for her older son on Saturday and is expecting 18 adults and 19 children. Yes. She is insane. But Thomas comes from a big family, there are lots of cousins and step-cousins and she wants Eli to know his family. So 19 children, including some extremely energetic boys. Luckily the weather will be good and they'll be outside; she devises all kinds of fun things for them to do. And then there's opening presents and cake, which will occupy them all for at least seven minutes.

Eli is FIVE. How did that happen so fast? I know, that's what boring old people always say. And now that's me.

Have been immersed in teaching work and trying to get the house and my life in order all week, hence not writing here. The cultural appropriation controversy continues to rage; another magazine editor resigned and a CBC producer was reassigned, as a result of their intemperate responses. In one way, the Writers' Union did us all a favour in bringing this important issue to the forefront.

Last week I saw there was a rerun of the second episode of The Handmaid's Tale, the film adaptation of Margaret Atwood's dark dystopian fantasy, and started eagerly to watch - it has had very good reviews. But I had to turn it off. Dark doesn't even begin to describe it - it's unbelievably depressing, and there's already far too much that's depressing - and terrifying - going on out there. Instead I watched King Charles III, a British production imagining a few years hence when the Queen dies and Charles takes over. He is however out of touch and finds himself shoved aside by his son. Strange to watch Will and Kate and Harry and Camilla, not to mention Charles himself, portrayed on film in a kind of Shakespearean tragedy in blank verse. An excellent production.

But mostly, I, like most of the planet, am preoccupied with something vastly more sleazy, avidly reading the papers for the latest scandal, the latest unbelievable stupidity. And the man never disappoints.