Progress, in pink, green, red, blue.....

This image, for me, is much more exciting than it looks. The walls are now up for the new bathroom in our house renovation project, in the corner where C and LoJ were knocking down the old chimney a few weeks ago. Everything that's in this picture will be covered with something else soon - the new chimney and walls with paint and shelves, the floor with tiles, the bathroom walls with tiles - and, of course, there will be a door, when we've decided what design we want. So this is a record of this stage of progress.

And, thinking of progress, I'm sad that there has been so little of it for women the world over. Forty years ago, as a young feminist, I would have hoped that by now there would be no need for an International Women's Day, but sadly there is, for women like Lul Ali Osman Barake, for instance, a Somali woman who was imprisoned for complaining about being raped by five men in military uniform. For her and for millions of other women around the world, even in the West, we need International Women's Day and a continuing fight for equality.