Passport update

For the benefit of all those who told me, in this journal and elsewhere, that I was worrying unnecessarily about renewing my passport, and that all would be well: you were quite right. My new passport arrived this morning (which is to say, not in the post, and not by any identifiable courrier - is it possible that local passports are simply delivered by hand?), which also goes to show that I was right not to pay extra for the special accelerated service. I had forgotten that it would be one of the new illustrated ones - oh, look, there's the Angel of the North!