The place is awash with tulips.  And to think I used to think them vulgar, gaudy, like plastic beakers for a children’s picnic, not my thing at all because I was too shy and introverted.  But these sing and dance and do the cancan, and all I can do is take hands and join in, and laugh. They’re mostly Apeldoorn varieties, plain Apeldoorn, Golden Apeldoorn and Apeldoorn Elite, because these are mostly perennial, coming up year after year.  The fiery colours mix well. (One year I had in nearby pots some purple ones, which looked most disapproving. It might have worked if I’d mixed...

April 1st.  The trees boom in the wind –something is happening up there. I was reading The Lord’s Army, about the army of children in Uganda who murder, burn and steal as best they can.  They are organised  by a man named Kony, who believes he is God.  Spirits are everywhere – and Kony is possessed by a murderous spirit.  But, though the book is about this evil in a corner of Uganda, I keep glimpsing beyond in the rest of Uganda and in Africa a glorious animism .  Everything is alive with spirits, and the churches are full, and a woman jumps up and laughs, such is her joy in the Lord....