Arrived in sunny Tenerife yesterday and here's the view I woke up to this morning when I walked out onto the balcony of my hotel room.  Rather splendid, so long as the volcano keeps quiet. Though on second thoughts it would be splendid to see an eruption.

It's good to be in a position to unwind after the activities and indulgences of Christmas and New Year, indulgences mostly of an eating and drinking nature.  I had an excellent birthday lunch in the High Street before heading for Keswick where I ate several large and tasty meals over a period of four days in the company of Fiona, Connor and Ewan (for the first time in a few years) plus Ben, Amelia, Julian, Maureen, Claire and Patrick.

My next stop was Stratford upon Avon but the rail connections are such that it was easier to come back to Edinburgh, spend the night at home and set off next day than to go directly from Keswick.

Given the chaos on the network at the same time of year I experienced a couple of years ago and with Connor's "have a good journey" ringing in my ears as he dropped me at Penrith my spirits were dimmed when the first thing I saw on entering the station was a display announcing that my train was cancelled.

After a few words with the guy at the desk I settled down grumpily for an hour's wait.  But ten minutes or so later another passenger waving his phone about said "cancelled?. According to this (wave of phone) it's running, five minutes late but running.". And do it was. Grumps gone and home in good time.

I was going to Stratford to see the RSC's dramatisation of Robert Harris's trilogy about Cicero.  I had very much enjoyed the novels (and others by Harris who knows how to weave a good historical tale) and could see that putting them on stage (or on TV, is that to come?) would be tricky but potentially rewarding.

Indeed it was a great show.  Six hours not counting intervals spread over two evenings and yet large chunks left out, particularly of the first novel. I was briefly unsympathetic to part of the second evening when I felt there was rather a lot of running about to little effect but otherwise I have nothing but praise for the whole enterprise.  The trip was well worthwhile.

I'm almost tempted to go back to see their Macbeth but it's going to be broadcast to cinemas so I may save time and money by booking a comfy seat at the Cameo.  There are a lot of Macbeths coming up in 2018, including a Grads production which was unaccountably missing from the Guardian's enumeration of them the other day. I hope to get a part in that one.