h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley, and one where I have been struck by the irony that the latest series of "Dr Who" coincides with the clocks going forward. The message (at least from the BBC) seems to be that (limited) time travel into the future is possible, even if you don't have a Tardis! Incidentally, the real Tardis (the one they used for the original 1960s cult series) is at the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings in Worcestershire, where we launched "Jordan's Guide to English Churches" in 2000. I have a picture somewhere of me standing next to it. Five years ago, at least in our universe.

Well, finally, Spring is beginning to show a few tentative signs. As I write this, the catkins and the buds on the tracery of what have been bare branches outside my office window all winter, are now bursting out in all directions with a green that is so bright and young it's almost yellow enough to hurt your eyes, especially in the sunshine. Still no crocuses though.

Tig and Fred are relishing the prospect of longer days ahead, and longer walkies - as indeed are we wall, though our plans to get away to the Lakes this Easter have been thwarted by the Invasion of the Plumbers (which in itself sounds like a Dr Who episode, like the ones where the Daleks brandish sink-plungers). Of which, more later.

Kitty has skedaddled each time John and Colin (the plumber) have arrived, only returning long after they have gone. It's rather odd that one Colin is doing up another Colin's house, even though one of them is currently deceased (not the plumber, obviously) and I suppose Colin is a fairly common name. Nigel is still spreading fur and happiness wherever he goes, in equal proportions, actually, if anything, with slightly more fur: Dusty has once more taken central place on the duvet, which makes it very difficult to turn over during the night. She also has a fascinating range of nocturnal purrs, some of which sound like trimphone ring-tones. Once or twice, in a sleep-befuddled state, being woken by her in the early hours, I have almost picked her up and tried to answer her, a la Victor Meldrew with the puppy.

Russell is OK, although I am not certain he's not getting fed up of his dog food diet and starting to look further afield, at least in culinary terms. He's also lost his cat ID barrel off his collar, which will be another £2.50 at least to replace. It's just as well he doesn't stray far from the fire. I am still grateful for every day he continues purring, though.

For me, the week's been dominated by computer problems (happily, now fixed, it would seem) and the launch of Maisie's new book on SPB Mais, An Unrepentant Englishman, which is coming up next week. For Deb it's been dominated by kitchens and ballooning.

It turns out that Gez knows somebody who owns a hot-air balloon and they have offered to take Deb up for a flip, following her microlight exploits in Australia two years ago. Twice last week, Debbie got up at some ungodly hour ready to drive over to the field where they were planning to launch at dawn, and twice she has been phoned up at the last minute to say that the weather is too rainy to fly, so her great balloon dream is unfulfilled at the moment. It strikes me that any form of aerial transport which relies on fine weather for its success doesn't really belong in the English landscape, and I can see why they invented aeroplanes, probably for the same reasons that I switched from motorbike riding to driving a car many years ago.

Other than that, it's been kitchens, kitchens all the way, apart from today, when Deb's quest to buy herself a new power-drill from Argos was thwarted by the Easter Sunday Trading Laws. She's been busy putting up cupboards and screwing together cabinets. The other day she rang me up at the warehouse:

"Have you seen the linseed oil"

"No, I didn't know we had any, why do you want linseed oil?"

"I want to treat the worktop"

"Can't you just take it to the zoo?"

Click. Brrrrrrr.

I am really looking forward to the kitchen being finished, so I can start cooking properly again. I did manage a half-decent pasta last week. Next day, there was a small amount of pasta left, but it wasn't really fit for human consumption. I hate wasting food, and, feeling at my most hippyish, I decided to distribute it for the birds and animals. I took it to the edge of the decking, outside the conservatory door. "I give this pasta back to the Earth which bore it, with thanks", I intoned solemnly, swinging the pasta drainer in an arc, casting the pasta out over the garden, expecting it to spread out over the lawn. Instead, glued together by the day-old starch, it flew in a solid lump like a cannonball, landing, with a thud redolent of a Christmas pudding, under the hedge, where Tia, next door's dog, proceeded first to sniff, then to eagerly devour it.

So, next week, while Deb continues ballooning and kitchen-building, I will be revisiting some of my past haunts in Chichester at the book launch at the West Sussex Record Office on Wednesday. (11AM, come along, you'll be welcome) I am looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with the Cathedral and Bishop Storey's Cross (as we used to say at the time, in best Morecambe and Wise tradition: "Bishop Storey's Cross? - I'm not surprised, he's been dead since 1547!") To get myself in the mood I have been listening to a CD of Elizabethan madrigals today, including Wilbye's "Flora Gave Me Fairest Flowers", and "Hark All Ye Lovely Saints Above", by Thomas Weelkes, who was the Organist of Chichester Cathedral a mere half -century after Bishop Storey built the Market Cross. It says on the sleeve notes that little is known of Weelkes, and "his later years were overshadowed by drunkeness", something which might well appear on my sleeve notes, if I ever have any.

I will also look forward to seeing the Cathedral's Arundel Tomb again, the one which Larkin wrote his famous poem about, with that last line to which I keep returning so often it's become a touchstone for me, especially when I think about dying: "What will survive of us is love". I'd like to think that this is true.

I haven't been in a very loving or forgiving mood this week. The election "which dare not speak its name" is still annoying me, and I have also been composing snotty letters to the person who owns the web site that sent me the email with the virus that started all the computer chaos off. I also decided that I was going to go to a meeting of the fans of The Archers and hope to confront someone I had locked horns with about the subject of an earlier Epilogue. I was brought up short by an email from one of my friends asking if I really intended to do this, which made me realise how out-of-proportion this was all getting - almost like a vendetta. (I always think that "vendetta" sounds like a small Italian scooter - so instead of going off in a huff, one could perhaps embark on a vendetta - anyway, I digress)

It made me realise, getting that email, how potentially unpleasant I was becoming. This is a time of the year when I should be concentrating on forgiveness, but for the third week running here I am struggling with the very concept. If Jesus could forgive people for driving nails through his hands and feet, and subjecting him to a horrible death, how much easier should it be for me to forgive a computer virus, or a bad-tempered disagreement on a message board. Severe lack of perspective alert!

I have to remind myself that the reaction to Jesus dying on Good Friday was not the turmoil of a vengeful uprising with Roman blood staining the gutters of Jerusalem, but two women going quietly into a garden two days later, and seeing a massive stone cast aside from an empty tomb by an angel with a face like lightning, who quietly told them that there was nothing there for them to see. I need to realise, I think, that if I want what remains of me to be love, I need to cast aside some of these stones. Apart from anything else, I'd have more energy for things that matter.

It reminds me of a story from the Zen tradition. The Zen Master and one of his novice pupils were travelling for many days across rough country between monasteries. Eventually they came to a ford through a fast-flowing river, where a beautiful young girl stood at the water's edge. The Zen Master asked her what the matter was, and she replied that she was too frightened to attempt to ford the fast-flowing stream. Without further ado, the Zen Master hoisted her over his shoulder and waded across, followed by his pupil. He put her down at the other side of the river, and she thanked him profusely and went on her way. The Zen Master and his Pupil toiled on along the road, but the Master noticed a difference in the Pupil's demeanour. Whereas before they had been talking and arguing, now he was sullen and withdrawn. He asked him what the matter was.

"Well, it's not right, a respected man of your religious standing, picking up that young girl like that and manhandling her across the river, showing off her legs and all that!"

Whereupon the Master fixed the Pupil with a fierce glare:

"Why are you still carrying that girl? I put her down at the river!"

Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to let it go, sometimes.