High risers in Khimki

These cacti are the offspring of a really huge one which was known around the flat as "Chlen KPSS", or "Member of the CPSU". The word "member", has the same double meaning in Russian as it does in English, so it is appropriate that these cacti are photographed in the dawn light when their pricks seem to stand out more clearly.

They stand right next to my left elbow when I am working at my desk, giving me subliminal inspiration for my novel about Alice, the wife of the Edinburgh judge who is a woman who cannot be tamed by the methods open to conventionally respectable society. That is why her husband enjoys her company so energetically.