sunny, sunny England

After packing all of my moderately warm clothes (thinking that I could then leave them here as it's been hot in SoCal), I then arrive in England to 70 degree weather and gorgeous sunny skies. I managed to get a tan yesterday. It's almost surreal, this weather.
Pete and I spent the weekend down in Devon, (Tavistock to be exact) at the wedding of some friends of ours. It was a truly lovely event, not the least because the bride went around saying "lovely, lovely" and looking lovely as well. This wedding was the second in a group of friends that have known each other for over ten years, and they are an amazingly wonderful (lovely!) group of people. There is rarely a get-together that doesn't involve enough laughter to make stomachs sore the next morning, and everyone is genuinely happy for everyone else.
Plus, one of the group lent me Nick Hornby's Polysyllabic Spree. It's a joy for lovers of books to read. It is torturing Pete because I now have a running list of books-I-now-need-to-buy which range from biographies of poets to newly-published fiction. The essays are entertaining in a way that reminds me of Michael Dirda's Readings, and the sheer love of book and reading that comes through is fantastic. I loved, as well, his insistence that people should be encouraged to read for pleasure and to read what pleases them--instead of feeling as if they "have" to read only certain books--or that some books are somehow worth more than others.
At the very least, I now have to get my own copy of the "Spree".
(pictures included to prove the fact that the weather was incredible this weekend!)