Summer garden buys, part 1

and Keith McNally's book, and feeling like bunking off

This idyllic weather is profoundly unconducive to getting any work done. It reminds me of school on boiling hot days, when you hoped with all your might that the teacher would take pity and decide you could have the lesson outside.

Sometimes she did, and you’d go and sit under a tree and pretend to concentrate for a bit, but the grass and the sky and the heat made everyone woozy and distracted, so after a while you’d just chat and loll about. There’s such a particular pleasure to lolling when you should be working.