Phoenix rising

The little laptop is not dead - I should have had faith! It worked perfectly this morning, so that is good news.  The problem of incoming e-mails might be easily solved. I've noticed I get three copies of the same message with five mnutes on the same day, but from different groups, which certainly isn't necessary for me! Once will do! So some groups I'm going to mark as view website only, otherwise I'll never get any writing done.

My pictures  for the next few days were all taken as I walked out of the hotel doorway and gazed across at the Castle and Cathedral, then walked along the river bank to Prebend's Bridge, up to the Cathedral and back down the other river bank back to the hotel. The weather was dull and threatening, with occasional flashes of sunshine. The river was high, full of brown flood water, but there was no flooding. Pity the little boy who fell into the river a little further upstream a week ago. He had little chance in such a torrent, because the same conditions existed then.
The river loops like a horseshoe around the promontory on which the medieval buildings stand, and the ancient bridges and cobbled streets are still there, too. A Cambridge professor once called Durham the finest medieval building in Europe, saying that for setting, unity, harmony and strength, he chose Durham out of all the other monuments of Christian faith. I'm happy to claim it as my home town.