(re)discoveries

The first real day back in the office, and I'm trying to work out how I spent all that time away so easily ... all those bits of work which I took away with me have come back with me still undone. One thing which we unearthed was an old tape of Brahms's Hungarian Dances, which I used to listen to years ago without even knowing that's what they were called. Bright and cheerful and completely forgotten, till we turned it up two weeks ago. We also went out for a spin in the car and discovered this beautiful scene of telephone wires:

I also read, at long last, The Lord of the Rings. Some time I want to thrash out some questions about artificial providences in fictional writings, but in the meantime, I was surprised how much I enjoyed the book. The values are unambiguous, and the story is full of imagination and interest - the good guys are actually good, and you aren't being manipulated to sympathise with the dark forces of evil, and after the grand heroism of destroying the Ring, the finale comes with sorting out the lives of ordinary hobbits, getting back to normal after all that excitement. Now I have to re-read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - even though I already know that I'm not suddenly going to find any Christian imagery or worthwhile analogies in there, however much I might have enjoyed the story as a story. But in the mean time, I have some work to catch up on.