Wednesday 4 May

Another beautifully sunny day, but with increasing amounts of high cloud. Rain is expected overnight, bringing this spell of nice spring weather to a close. It is supposed to get up to 27C in southern England by the weekend; we're on the northern extremity of this heat, and will not exceed 14C. Which I prefer, to be honest.

I downloaded some more interesting news paper articles from the 19th century - I paid for a 7-day pass to download up to 200 articles; at the moment I am up to 72, including about a dozen for another researcher. The pass expires on Sunday, and I may well have in excess of 100 articles by then. I'll now have to read them all.

The weather this evening was beautifully calm, and I went out just after 8pm to watch the ferry coming in. Apart from the noise of the engines, there was not a sound and not a breath of wind. The 13C on the thermometer felt quite pleasant.

I am glad that we are going to be spared the sight of Osama bin Laden with his brains hanging out. It would have served no constructive purpose, and you always get conspiracist numbskulls who claim that the man is not really dead. However, his 12-year old daughter had seen her father being shot dead, and it's not a claim that you idly make - not from the Americans neither from the girl. We are now rid of one of history's evil personae, ranking among the likes of Adolf Hitler.