Purple patches

Even in Antarctica, I read, some are today wearing purple: it's the global day of epilepsy awareness, the brainchild (four years ago) of a young Canadian girl. Cassidy - for it was she - chose the colour purple after the international colour for epilepsy, lavender - a flower often associated with solitude, and so echoing the feelings of isolation of many epileptics.

My photograph - to complement this - was stolen during last evening's mass at St Gregory's, the first Sunday in Passiontide. The clocks went forward but the church went dark. By contrast, I had a lovely sunny walk down from home, admiring Cheltenham's profusion of magnolia trees of several varieties; and on afterwards to the Town Hall to hear (and see) the beautiful Natalie Clein playing with the Oxford Philomusica. It was her 35th birthday, and rather as - in the office - we had to buy everyone cake on our birthdays, she too gave the orchestra (and us) a present, staying on after the interval to take her place amongst the 'cellos for the performance of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony.