I look back over this month, and can't quite believe that it began with Easter... Which feels so long ago... But sure enough, Easter is part of April, with suburban walks and horse trams, and an Easter Monday expedition to Port Soderick.

One big April theme is SPRING! It's really all happening now. In fact, as I look up from my laptop, I can see a mass of blossom zinging off the bush in the front garden, while the tree beyond is frosted with tender new green. Tomorrow, in the Celtic tradition, is the first day of summer. So tonight is Oie Voaldyn or May Day Eve. I didn't get my crosh cuirn organized (rowan twigs tied with wool), but I did leave a few dandelions on the doorstep after my grass-cutting efforts (mischievous beings don't like yellow flowers, you see).




The other Big Thing about April was my mum-in-law's visit, which we hope will be the first of many. We had stupendous weather, and the Island was looking its fabulous best. See here, here, and here for some of the things we got up to.

She is also to be credited with finally getting us going on our little patches of garden...



Fortunately, something that was shaping up to be a particularly nasty April event was headed off at the pass. The words you're listening out for when you go for a routine hospital check-up are: "Nothing to worry about, and we'll see you next year." When they don't come, and instead you're ushered in for further tests and a series of biopsies, your spirits fall dramatically. But the tests came back today, and all is well. Another of those false alarms that have punctuated recent years. Not that I'm complaining about false alarms, mind you. They show that people have an eye out for you. One day, there'll be a real alarm. But not yet.





***

The Velvet Cushion has fallen behind again. But two Book notes posts appeared (on destruction and bookwormery), as well as a few posts recording a slightly patchy crop:

-- Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng, and The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris, were both enjoyable listens, and informative in their way, but didn't quite live up to my expectations. I had another miss with Anthony Burgess's Earthly Powers (I see and salute how clever it was, but I just didn't get on with the tone).

-- Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection, on the other hand, was exactly that: An absolute little gem about living abroad in a social-media-fuelled world (and in many ways an uncomfortably reflective mirror). Also awesome was A Manual for Cleaning Women, a collection of short stories by Lucia Berlin, who's observant, sad, funny, and disturbing all at the same time.

-- Courtesy of the valiant Douglas Library, I've continued my James Joyce theme, with a couple of books that offer an author's view: First, a concise and enjoyable biography by Edna O'Brien; and then Mad, Bad, Dangerous To Know, by Colm Toibin, who shines the spotlight on the three "prodigal fathers" of Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, and James Joyce.

But there's a lot still stuck in the pipeline, so hopefully it will all come sputtering out next month.




***

Notable links this month:

-- Maria Popova reminds us of Hannah Fries's "Wherever You Think There Is Nothing". A beautiful reflection.
-- Oxfam reminds us of some uncomfortable statistics. (I'm not anti-wealth. Hell, I'm wealthy myself compared with so many millions of people. But it is surely nothing short of OBSCENE that the world’s 12 richest billionaires possess more wealth than the poorer half of humanity -- ie, more than 4 billion people -- put together...)
-- And this kea reminds us that where there's a will, there's a way...

Kai from Dense Discovery, meanwhile, draws our attention to an interesting piece by Camilo Moreno-Salamanca. Under discussion is the ineluctable modern tension between two speeds and sets of values: One that prioritizes keeping up with the technological vanguard (and just because you're not juggling Claude Code and OpenClaw and all that malarky doesn't mean you're not required to do this -- we're all constantly forced to update things, master weird stuff, keep ahead of scams, etc, etc); and one that emphasizes the slow, the mundane, and the real (books, mindfulness, friends, nature...).

Moreno-Salamanca concludes that we can't simply opt for one or the other. We have to exist somewhere in the middle. "But even with this possible way forward," he concludes, "I'm not sure if humans are designed to operate in this mode."

To some extent, I'm sure this has always been the case. Every new wave of technology has probably posed the same challenges. But the discrepancy between the two dynamics does seem to be getting bigger -- causing more and more of a drain on our energy.

Kai comments: "I'm deeply convinced that the good life is found in real connection, in being present in the physical and the local rather than being constantly yanked into a world mediated by screens and platforms." Yet he acknowledges that this "version of the good life feels more and more like nostalgia". Trends won't stop, after all, just because we don't like them, and opt out of them. He also interrogates his own increased "appetite for slowness". I'm not sure how old he is, but he's correct in recognizing that "getting older has a way of making retreat feel like principle, instead of what it often is: habit or fear..."

The upshot is that we're left living with dissonance. This is not a new thing either -- capitalism, he points out, has long made us settle for a compromise "between what we value and how we actually live, between the world we want and the systems we help perpetuate" -- but the dissonance is increasing, as the amount we're being asked to accept and overlook keeps expanding. Thought-provoking...

But I don't want to end on a disconcerting note. So here's some wonderfully comforting purple from Laxey Woollen Mills: