Quinoa is not a staple at our house. I like it a lot, but I don’t make it that often. If I did, I would probably already have negotiated a way through the ethical maze that confronts me. Should I buy quinoa from its homeland in South America, and if so should it be the morally superior stuff grown by small farmers on the altiplano of Peru and Bolivia, or the industrial stuff grown on the coast by greedy land barons cashing in on the mystique cultivated by the local people they despise?

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The top event of the month was, I suppose, my Mother’s 100^th birthday, the celebration of which (in June) is the reason this entry is as late as it. Also a lot of fun was a bicycling holiday — only four days — in the Po Delta. Like last month’s trip to Sicily, I haven’t written that up yet either. It has been a month full of visits from family and friends.

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A couple of days ago a strange error on one of my websites suggested I look at php_error.log for a deeper understanding of the problem. The deeper understanding eluded me, but I did notice just how many errors there were. I had never before had to pay attention to these things and now I was upset, not least by my ignorance of what to do.

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One reason I have had so little to say here is that I have been too busy having fun, and today was no exception. Rain, however, stopped play early and so here I am, forcing myself to share a few of the spoils before a little nap.

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My feet are not a pretty sight. I have a pronounced bunion (/bˈʌnɪən/) on the right and a littler one on the left. They sort of crept up on me when I noticed a kind of hump on adjacent toes. ”Oh, that’s a hammer toe,” said my friendly physician, who sent me off to an orthopaedic surgeon, who sent me off for X-rays and who eventually moulded my feet in plaster of Paris for custom orthotics that I have worn ever since.

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