April has been dominated by the last major home improvement project: a new front drive. In the finest tradition this has been subject to 'mission creep', spawning three further but much smaller projects, two of which will be reported on as they are completed. The main project has proved straightforward, the most intense discussions, and measurements, being reserved for the height of the front doorstep. The new layout will provide a quadrant shaped bed, which will not be turfed but will be dug over during the summer ready for autumn planting with new shrubs.

Biannual Scout reunions continue, though one this month was attended by much smaller numbers, possibly because I forgot to send out 'reminders' to the faithful.

School and other holidays did not reduce my activities as archivist. I paid a most interesting visit to Bicester, the home of their photographers Gillman and Soame. There I saw the way in which the latest technology is applied to conserving old photographs - like the eight I had taken for their attention.

Easter Monday was spent in the company of a charming young Aston Old Edwardian, recording his reminiscences of his time at the school for its 'Aston Voices' project. Despite almost fifty years' difference in our ages, we find that there is so much we have in common through that shared experience, not all of which was educational. Also, it was very prestigious to have his father's Jaguar X-type on the drive!

Gardening is now in full swing, partly because the season seems to be a bit advanced this year. Pots of geraniums and petunias have been created, and are outside 'hardening off'. These will be used, among other things, to relieve the expanse of paving in the front garden, where new shrubs must await the autumn. Fuchsias, lilies and dahlias are being brought along in the greenhouse, the possibility of late frosts making it too risky to do the same with them.

Once exhaustion brings an often premature end to gardening, there is still my slide project to be progressed. The pace has slowed somewhat because a better quality of scan is being used, so working on box 34 of 77 represents a modest advance. It is fascinating to see again photographs that I had forgotten, though not the places in which they were taken, currently in 1986.

A much needed, and long awaited, replacement for a bridge over the river Cole necessitated, understandably, road diversions. But guess what? The council decided to undertake, simultaneously, major roadworks on the diversion!

Like millions of others, I watched with fascination the wedding of a young man who, despite the republicans, will be King long after these blogs have fallen silent.