Amongst

the delights of being busy are that when the Christmas holiday comes, it will be a holiday; and that the end of the day means I can switch off from marking assignments and enjoy the next twist in my bedtime story. Th author and I worked in the same place, at different times. 

Now it's time to drop another name. Of course, when Maria Romanoff was kind enough to invite me to her 21st that sunny evening on a hillside overlooking Oxford, nothing was said about the gold ...