Leftovers

Sometimes you realise that Today Is The Day - for tackling that heap of papers that's been building up.

Set the timer for 15 minutes - start - and if in doubt, bin it. Or at least that's the theory.

When the timer pinged, or rather buzzed, to signal the end of the task, I had a few things left over, things I couldn't quite manage to put in the bin. Taking a photo is helpful with this, so here they are -

- an article about Idris Khan, in the Guardian's Saturday review, 02.09.06 (here, with fewer photos; a more recent article on him is here)

- Persephone Biannually, with cover pic of Southern England 1944: Spitfires attacking flying-bombs by Walter Thomas Mornington (1902-1976) - available as a print from the Imperial War Museum (it knowingly references the cart from The Haywain, and surely that low-flying plane is either about to crash or has an extremely skillful pilot?)

- article on the art of Lucy Ward, needing another read on a tube journey sometime soon (available here)

- a little cutting from a horoscope that makes me smile wryly -

Gemini May 22-June 21
As the multi-tasker of the zodiac, you are great at juggling many different projects. However, your home life could do with organisation. Eventually everything will fall into place but something will have to give.

- a quote to send to a friend

- a few doodles, combined with yet more articles to re-read - or bin straight away

- two recipe supplements from the newspaper - these go into a heap for sorting later, and yes I do make a recipe from them now and then, the latest being Smoked Haddock Dauphinoise (too rich!)

Now we're at "the irreducible minimum" -

- a postcard that needs keeping, but where to put it? Unlike the recipes, I have no collection of "postcards that must be sorted some day but should be looked through more often"; they are in various places and I just don't feel like gathering them, at the moment, or perhaps ever

- a lovely little used envelope, with an interior of tiny squares and a fragile but valient feel to the paper

- two tiny pix of art from a magazine, to be glued into my notebook

-recipe for a cauliflower salad with pomegranate seeds (or pistachios) that, seduced by the photo, I'll make in the next day or two

- a memorable fact: "the arctic tern, travelling from the Arctic to Antarctica and back each year, sees more daylight than any other creature on the planet". What's more, arctic terns can live for 30 years, and thus travel 2.4 million kilometres. Amazing.

Sorting was quick, documenting The Irreducible took rather longer; now the originals can mostly be binned. 

Something, as the horoscope hinted, is giving.