Oh dear. Late again. [rummages in Excuses Drawer. House burned down. Trousers exploded. Short term alien abduction] No. None of those ring true. Truth is, I forgot. But it turns out that’s not been an altogether bad thing. At least now I can be right on the button in saying “Good Riddance !” to that Miller person. Dave must be livid. Good. But there are two things which still puzzle me. One, that the system is such that Ms Miller thought she could get away with it, and two, the system only reclaimed a fraction of what she’d stolen from us.

Mind you, the biggest current government swindle is the flogging off of Royal Mail cheap, mainly to rich types and banks.

But to hell with all that. Spring is here, chirpy new weeds are poking up everywhere and as I type, a gardener is attempting to tame the wilderness that is my back garden. I can’t because of my ongoing hip/back trouble [full description available on request], and there are some pretty serious dandelion colonies, tough dock gatherings and plain old grass where it shouldn’t be. Also, Mr Gardener’s going to clean the presently green mossy decking. We’ve only got decking because when Maggie the dog was young she proved to be an inveterate digger.

So come tea time, I shall be gazing out of my studio window on to a peaceful, ordered pastoral scene. And thanks to the hens, the gardener won’t have to cart away the resulting 300 tons of weeds. All he has to do is heave them into the hen – run and the girls will eat ‘em.

Meanwhile, in Cartoonworld, work proceeds in an ok sort of way, which in a difficult market, is good. And soon – on Saturday 26th of April, it will be Shrewsbury International Cartoon Festival ! Again. Against all the odds. The Council, which has supported the Festival down the years were forced to withdraw funding this year – very regretfully, it must be said – but by dint of looking at what we, the organisers had in the kitty, plus individual donations and sponsors – the Festival lives ! Its only one day this year, but looking at the programme, Saturday visitors won’t notice a difference.