Still turning out, but I’m getting to the stage of putting away now.  I’ve found all sorts of things.  Alex’s exam certificates for example.  My address book, which I may have mentioned already.  Books I’ve been looking for for a while, too.  I was particularly pleased to find Madhur Jaffrey’s memoir, Climbing The Mango Trees, which I recommend highly.  However. there’s still some way to go and I’m a bit bored now.

Bored with that, I mean, not in general terms.

One of the other things I found was – well, several, so were – copies of the splendid late magazine, Tough Puzzles.  I used to love it and, at one stage, had three subscriptions going, for myself, Ronan and Alex.  I found a completed copy and showed it to Tim.  He was frankly bemused by the arithmetical puzzles, having an aversion to such things – though he’s vastly better than I am at wordy things.  Anyway, I also found a few copies that were almost unstarted. so I’m going to have a wonderful time wondering how the hell I ever managed to do anything so difficult?

LT wondered how I knew which letter of the alphabet corresponded to a given number – e.g., 15=O, 18=R, 4=D.  I learned ages ago, I explained.  The children and I had a game, one of us spelled out a word, or series of words, by their numerical equivalent (so cat was 3-1-20) and you won by getting the word or phrase quickest.  I could, effortlessly, talk in number equivalents – and, as I explained this to him, I appreciated how weird I was then.  I spent decades doing this sort of thing for fun.  I don’t actually understand me.