solitary splendour

Our last full day; Lucy opts for the shores of Loch Scresort to spot more seals and possibly the elusive otters, while I decide to see if I can make it to Harris on the other side of Rum.
I think it's approximately 8 miles to Harris - it's certainly further than the 5 miles between Kinloch and Kilmory. In spite of 'writing in a get-out clause' - I'll turn back if I get too knackered, too wet, whatever - secretly, I'm determined to reach the bay (and if you'd read Magnus' description of the road to Harris, you'd have embraced the challenge too).
I have an awesome day.
And awful!
I get drenched in squall after squall; it's cold and dank... but it's also majestic and incredibly beautiful. The wind may have an uncomfortable chill factor, but it also dries me out as the rain moves on to adjacent mountains. For mile upon mile, hour upon hour, I tramp through this wild and wonderful landscape with not another living soul in sight.
Just me and the wildlife on God's own isle, thinking our thoughts together.
The intense peacefulness in these miles of uninhabited space is almost impossible to describe. It's too cold and wet for my notebook, so my mobile doubles as dictaphone - unfortunately inaccessible until I get a new charger, having lost mine on my travels!
Utterly elated at reaching my goal, I sit under the door lintel on the steps of the little cottage at Harris, out the vicious wind, to eat my packed lunch.
I've found a very unexpected paradise.
The last few miles I walk like a Chinese woman with bound feet. Each time my weary legs stumble on the rocky trail, fountains of pain cascade through my feet. My right knee thinks I've belted it with a 20-pound lumphammer, and my hips are harmonising quietly with the choir of complaint. I wish fervently for something to distract me from the pain... and the rain starts again. Icy water down the backs of my legs; the Cosmic Joker is always listening.
It may be a bit soon to risk alcohol - but I deserve a Black Cuillin beer!
And the Joker throws in an expert massage just to round off an amazing day, courtesy of Trish, the stand-in chef, who has a massage practice on the mainland.
Into another kind of paradise...

miscellaneous

Adverse weather rolls in over the hills very quickly - but can evaporate just as quickly.


Smokers may be slightly chillier than elsewhere in the country, but the castle courtyard is a very convivial place to savour a post-prandial cigarette.

And there's a charming replica bird-table outside the bistro window - giving diners something to occupy them while browsing the menu. The service is so good, you don't have much (if any) time to contemplate the bird-table and its visitors...
We intend to slot the castle tour in between two short walks today - tours are timed to coincide with the ferry timetables. As Lucy and I go in search of seals and maybe otters on the shores of Loch Scresort, a ferryload of geriatrics hobble along castle-ward - each clot with a self-appointed spokesperson echoing the plea 'How far is it to the castle now?' We can't quite stomach sharing our magical place with this flotilla of ageing toddlers (one of whom addresses us as 'boys' - questionable how much of the sights she's going to appreciate!), so we move to plan B.
After spotting just a solitary seal, we settle for a picnic in our room with Magnus Magnusson's authoritative little book on Rum, followed by another baby walk along the river. Bizarrely, there's a park bench on the other side - we're tempted to ford the shallowest bit, so we can read the plaque, but decide we'd rather not have sopping wet socks and boots for the rest of our stay. We opt for perambulating the perimeters of the castle - and posing on the rebuilt Japanese style bridge which once adorned the owner's ornamental gardens.
At supper, we sit beside the Central Administrator for the Western Isles, and discover that there's an admin job coming up on the island...
I make a point of NOT checking out the cottage that the contractors have come to decorate in readiness for the new employee...

walking in wild landscapes

Three full days of walking. Three days full of bliss...
The woods around Loch Scresort give way to heathered moorland and spectacular waterfalls as the rocky 'road' rises into the hills.
Given that Rum was once compulsorily vacated to make way for 8,000 sheep (we met a chap from Nova Scotia who'd traced his roots to one of those evicted families), I didn't pick up the same grim atmosphere which characterises some areas of the Highlands - Glencoe, for example. Though that, admittedly, was the scene of a massacre - displacement doesn't equal those echoes.
Obviously, ordinary life here has never exactly been a breeze, but maybe the spirituality of the early Christian hermits, or the fun enjoyed by Edwardian playboys balanced that legacy with a lighter energy. (At the start of the 20th century, the castle's owner had 3 racing cars - there were men working full-time on maintaining the roads then, though. The tracks now are, in some places, a challenge even for the 4x4s... )
On our first full day, as we approach Kilmory, we can see the Skye Cuillins across the sea. Kilmory used to be the site of the laundry for the castle - a mere five miles away! - but now has a deer research outpost. We meet several others; the young couple from Penrith spending some time on the Islands as part of their Scottish road trip, Mr Nova Scotia, the hikers who have been castle-bound for the last two days because of rain (? the walking equivalent of fair-weather bikers?) and the teachers accompanying the troupe of teenagers wild-camping their way to their gold Duke of Edinburgh awards. We pass the ghillie's white Toyota pick-up, mercifully minus deer carcases - even when it overtakes us later, a few miles from Kinloch.

from my journal
The hostel rooms are in the old servants quarters on the third floor. Lucy and I are squeezed into a tiny room under the eaves, with space for our beds and a wardrobe and very little else. We have a skylight window that doesn't shut properly, but an old radiator that does, pumping more than enough heat into the space to make it cosy - adequate to dry the clothes we can't shoehorn into the drying room with the other hostellers' gear.
From our window (if we stand up) we can see looming hills and waving treetops.
Our ten-mile hike is such delight. At Kilmory, we find a curve of rock close to the water which shelters us from the biting wind as we feast on our packed lunches.
I take picture after picture, and we breathe lungfuls of fresh island air as the clouds swathe the hills around us. We're lucky, only getting slightly damp in the changeable conditions - and that as much as from internal conditions as external; walking in this landscape is hot work!

It's an artificial community, comprised of Scottish Natural Heritage employees. Although there are specific roles, everyone fulfills a multitude of tasks - the manager of the hostel and hotel took a crash course in hydroelectrics when the island mechanic left recently, and currently operates the islands generators. He and his wife and baby son have been on Rum for 18 months now; his previous post was in the Cairngorms.
'I don't do city jobs,' he tells me when I ask what motivates people to come and work here.

I know what he means.

It's wild out there now - blowing a gale and pouring with rain, the lullaby to sing me to sleep excess water rushing down drain pipes and overspilling other water channels... then the wind dies, and it's just the music of a channel somewhere runnelling off excess water.

hostelling in style

Kinloch Castle surveys Loch Scresort, with (on clear days) views of Skye and the mainland.
The castle manager loads our luggage in the Range Rover (the Americans in combats get a lift with their ghillie in a white Toyota pick-up), and we walk around the shore with our assorted ferrymates through woodland both imported and indigenous.

It's idyllic.

And the castle has a bistro...

Arriving merits an easeful day. A quick recce round the castle, a toastie at the tea shop and a brief rest before supper...

inauspicous start

The rain sleets across Mallaig as we leave the B&B. Within seconds, in spite of our layers and waterproofs, we're dank and miserable. This is not the gentle 'smirr in the wind' rain recalled with fondness from childhood summers, while lurking with Lucy on Sheena's porch, smoking. This is the serious rain that keeps me from risking a visit to Scotland.

The cosiness of the Faulty Tower-esque B&B is a much more attractive prospect than struggling down to the ferry terminal with our laden rucksacks.

Then, it seems the grim weather might jeopardise our crossing. Not the rain so much as the wind that's its bosom buddy. Hanging about in the cold, waiting for the Skye ferry (which has been cancelled) to shift its mooring and allow our little Island hopper in, we get chilled to the bone.

There's been a weird kind of transference; Lucy is now anxious about sailing, while I'm impatient to get to Rum.
The contrariness of the weather is also its advantage; in the hour or so it takes us to reach Eigg, the skies have cleared and the sun warms us through the seawind chill.
Our sea leg every bit as exquisite as the train yesterday.
This stretch of water was crossed by little puffer steamers - which transported the red stone to build the castle, aka industrial monies elaborate PR job and playground.

on the road to the Forbidden Isle

We set out on a cool, bright morning, a beautiful sunrise sky as we wait for our train (which is, predictably, an hour late - good old Virgin!) Luce upgrades us to First Class - few significant perks other than far greater travelling space, but on a long (and often tedious) journey that is benefit enough. The complimentary snack pack has little actual nutritional value, although heavy on the calories and a veritable E-fest...
Early Saturday morning to Sunday evening - bizarrely enough, our journey thus far almost comparable in duration to that to Nepal. Train from Bristol to Edinburgh, overnight stop there with Sheena before our next 'rail leg'; Edinburgh via Glasgow to Mallaig.
Luce proves even more delightful as a travelling companion than my expectation - her delight as we cross the border is infectious, and she's enthralled by Edinburgh's splendour, the imposing nature of its Gothic architecture. A whistlestop tour of the Royal Mile, then Sheena's whizz around the Queen's Park in the car reminds me of the beauty of my birthplace, and gives me the opportunity to see it afresh, through a stranger's eyes.

Spending the evening with Sheena is lovely - more reconnections... If I've felt an uncomfortable distance in our friendship of recent years, the reasons that situation has developed are now clear, and my paranoia allayed. As Sheena is one of my oldest friends (in the sense that we have known each other a long time, rather than that she's of ages with Methuselah), I should know better than to allow my imagination to fill in the gaps - but on the other hand, that's what I do as a writer; make imaginative leaps to make sense of my warped perceptions... as ever Sheena is funny, perceptive, intelligent, sensitive and above all interesting - such a jewel of a friend; how could I believe there was a conscious withdrawal?It's good to see how the gaps in the interaction of our separate realities have occurred.

Lucy and I are both utterly blown away by the spectacular panoramas between Glasgow and Mallaig. Knocks the Lake District into a cocked hat - even though I adore the lakes.

We watch the sun set over Rum, full of excitement for the following morning when the ferry will take us to the once Forbidden Isle...

from my journal:

these are my words, they comfort and encumber me, the stories I frame about my journeys both help assimilate experiences and limit who I can be; I offer glimpses of myself to others through the words I use to express who I am - and then sometimes become entrapped by a faux role, or reduced potential, by my own stereotyping...

mist magic

a different kind of dawn wonderland... with the sun rising behind the lightning tree, a time to be glad of 'fosterdog' and his necessitating early jaunts to the fields - which I wouldn't otherwise have ventured on - too conscious of time constraints...
I took several shots in my attempt to capture some of the beautiful spiderwork of that morning - unfortunately this is the only one that survived the cull necessary to make way for Rum landscapes...
maybe a little of the magic comes across...

circles and spirals

reconnections;
with the Bristol (and wider) poetry circuit - Rosemary Dun's Big Mouth Cabaret last night with Crysse. Great line-up, Elvis McGonagle on devilishly good form - but hey, read about the gig on Crysse's blog (http://crysse.blogspot.com/), her coverage is far more erudite than mine would be! But before you read about them, see what the live n' lippy's alphabetti dvd clip looks like on Youtube (cheers, Howard, you've done a grand job on the recording and visuals!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQouZIBS9NY

(so that covers reconnections with artistic collaborators).

with frustration at just being at work following cancellation of my training day (redeeming highlights; dawn walk with Joe beforehand, lunch with Ro during, afterwards supper with Sam and Crysse, writing and laughter at the Harbourside ... so the highlights involve reconnections).

disconnections:
Drafted my resignation today.

Another leap of faith anticipated - that conjures images of 'fosterdog' bouncing through the knee-high clover fields, canine joy incarnate...
A good image.
Much I will be sad to leave, though - those clover fields, for a start.
Mayblossom outside my window in the Spring.

Frome will remain a heart-home, it won't be a total severance - there are friends in all my heart-homes, and blood ties to keep a connection alive... writing, music and images make connections to my memories, the pearls strung on life's narrative.

So from disconnection we're back at reconnection...

reversals and life as a 4-dimensional Escher puzzle

A wonderful warm September day; since the twin towers tragedy I've noticed September is a personal chronological signifier of seismic internal and external change. This year is no exception.

At 7am today, I was in the cusp of the morning, watching the sun rise into soft clouds (later burned off by its heat). At the other end of the day, I walked in dusky fields soft-lit by the roseate afterglow.

The hectic pace in between safely buffered by green space and blue skies.

By October, the days will be too short to drain stresses into daylight, so this September time is precious.

The template of life change is like that of a 4-dimensional Escher puzzle; I've been given the corner pieces, and now the infinite pattern begins to reveal itself. There will be repetitions - the sun always rises and sets, the seasons morph into one another, albeit with changing characters. The ebb and flow of events will continue to play itself through time and space; my part is to work on perception and novel ways of seeing.

And stories, always stories, connections, Dreaming with the Driftwood Mirror and poetry.

One September I was blessed with an enchanted morning garbed in silver misted cobwebs. I've dusted off the poem that birthed - it needs some more crafting...
This September there is more writing ahead; writing alone, with Crysse, with other talented Frome writers... and hopefully Pilton writers, too. Maybe even writers I haven't yet met.
We shape the dimensions of our puzzles, our lives, with our individual and collective imaginative explorations...

No wonder I won't stand for writing time to be squeezed flat and lifeless. It needs space to breathe and stretch...

quick catch up

Nearly a month since my last posting on here... I'm not sure if that's a good sign or a bad sign! The upside is that it's not lack of inclination, rather the dearth of time to do so - the down side is that all writing time has been squeezed to snatched moments here and there.
There have been many long walks, though. The photo above is taken from the Crow's Nest, which is on the way to Tintern Abbey. The 365 steps up to the Crow's Nest through the trees made me think of wooded Nepalese slopes - and Fangorn Forest! A little unsettling as I was reading Stephen King's 'Lisey's Story' at the time...
An overactive imagination is both a blessing and a curse.
I have an ambivalent relationship to all the significant things in my life, though - which I've no doubt mentioned before.

More sedately - this shot was taken from the highest point of the Malverns; a leisurely upward stroll with Kit to work off our Sunday lunch...

Deciding to commit to a spot of 'dog fostering' is probably the main reason I've been pushed for blogging time. Ath would love to have a dog - so I thought, what better way to give him an inkling of what looking after a dog really entails than to look after one for a while...
Great idea in principle.
In practice?
Well - funnily enough, so far, I've been doing the majority of the walking...

Jack Russells are not my canine of choice, so I hadn't anticipated becoming so enamoured with our guest.
He's not only extremely cute, but highly intelligent and very entertaining - an irresisible mix! (in spite of the risk of the canine equivalent of the pub brawl if we meet a dog who's bigger than he is - little dogs are prone to 'little dog syndrome' just as much as their human counterparts succumb to 'size irritability').
There isn't much that can get me out of bed earlier than usual (not even the prospect of a longer writing session). But for this little chap, I'm up and out along the fields with no complaint at all.
Admittedly, the weather has changed dramatically - we've had no rain since he arrived, so it will be interesting to see how we feel on grey, wet days.
On these misty September morning and sundrenched evenings, his joy as he bounces ecstatically through the second growth of clover makes my smile a mile wide.

Lucy and I have now finalised most of the 'bookable details' of our sojourn to Rum. Travel and accommodation all sorted - at last! Something really worth blogging about coming up...

Life changes afoot, too - and that, too, is responsible for my virtual absence; lots to process privately.
The dog needs a walk, so I'm going to head off into the soft September afternoon.

coastal camping idyll

No matter how long you spend in a place, or how often you visit, there is always more to explore, more nooks and crannies to unearth... such as Warbarrow Bay, reached via Tyneham, the village evacuated when the War Office took it over. The residents never returned. It's unutterably sad, as if the echoes of those lives cling to the crumbling remnants of the hamlet; the world has moved on, but Tyneham school house is preserved as if in aspic.

Fifteen minutes walk away, rockpooling hasn't changed much...

although the photo opportunities are more selfconscious!

Kites get more sophisticated every year - check out this fabulous multi-coloured galleon riding the wind...


The moving image the over-riding influence everywhere now - in Lulworth Cove, Isla was thrilled to watch SMART setting up a sequence around a ship constructed from beachcombed detritus...

while we adults were tickled by the warning sign in the village by Corfe Castle.





from my journal:
the elements so skin-close as to talk to your soul...
the last three dry days have toasted the moisture to a greying icing on the grass...
across Lulworth Cove, tinies and toddlers with sun hats and buckets, poking around rocky shallows, pudgy middle-aged couples clambering up the slopes, parents with babies rucksacked on their backs, white t-shirted pre-pubescent Eastern Europeans...
flies casting dancing shadows on my skin...

memories from this year:
a full moon on Monday night illuminating my compartment in our tent
porridge for breakfast (the only cooking I did)
walking, walking... and more walking!
oodles of writing time
Carlo bringing his ipod - cracking tunes! (including some of his)
a very early walk to the beach (6.30am - what was I doing up?)
seeing my second adder (if I hadn't scared it, I would have been able to photograph it)
maybugs and glow worms
that sense of wellbeing... more intense than on any of our previous trips
having a solitary last day, writing in the sun, walking and taking snaps

five go mad in Dorset

The five happy campers this year - myself, and left to right, Carlo, Isla, Carole and Steve. Rather a bumpy start to this year's break - no Ath and crew. Ath couldn't get time off work. Rats.


Still, for the sixth summer running, the weather smiled indulgently on us... the Simpson skies above featured most days - or wispy tendrils hazing the horizon.


Only one day of grey clouds, very full clouds which chucked water at us - for all of half a day!



Isla shared (some of) the chores. Although Carole and I took the boat down most of the way to the beach...






You wouldn't think you could run up this slope... Well, I couldn't.
Atholl did, one year.
But this shot was probably the only moping I had time for...
And, with a long list of chores to tackle, work to get to in the morning - this is all I have time for.

reasons to be cheerful - part 2,073

So - what are my reasons to be cheerful today? It's not raining. For five minutes at least.

I got the train to work on Monday (my car got sick on the way to the Urusen gig on Friday - the gig was brilliant) and so my day was bookended by walks to and from Frome station and Temple Meads. Which, although raining that day - rather a lot - was delightful. I wish I had the time and money to take that option more often.
Crysse's birthday this week - see pic with Annie and (Niamh? sorry if I can't spell that properly) at the dinner party last night to celebrate the birthdays of all three - mucho Leo energy around, with Karen's birthday coming up. Last night's celebration another reason to be cheerful - a veritable smorgasbord of delights for our delectation. Including songs from Annabelle - such a multi-talented group!


Sunday saw Crysse and I fetching the car (the RAC a little less beleaguered by then, but still giving us an hour or so writing time while we waited) and enough sunshine to take a long walk in vest tops... before Crysse's anthology launch.

A
A brilliant evening, with a live n'lippy poem squeezed in with Crysse's anthology readings. Such delight to see in print so many poems whose birth I have attended, so to speak... but even more pleasurable to see so many people supporting the publication of the anthology. For Crysse's take on this and Frome Festival (among other writerly things), see http://crysse.blogspot.com/

The writer-in-residence 'award ceremony' following on the heels of the 'Are we nearly there yet?' launch meant it felt like Christie's was becoming my second home... Judge Helena Drysdale asked if I was an actress; I was thrilled to think the narrator of my story sounded so authentic - got something right! A challenge to read such erotic material in public (especially looking like a drowned rat, having arrived straight from the station - hence no pix!).
My car is now fixed, so that's another reason to be cheerful.

The rest of the week has been work and rain, rain and work... though by comparison with some areas, we're getting off lightly...
I have a week's holiday now. So even if it does keep raining, I'll have some writing time, some exercise - and some rest!
If my skin condition is at all related to stress, then the next week should see some improvement.
All in all, many reasons to be cheerful...

English summer days

Today's weather has continually changed character, raining one moment, sun shining the next - and sometimes raining through sunny spells. The cloudscapes have been utterly amazing; skies I would never tire of painting if I were an artist (although I might die of frustration at not being able to capture them adequately!)
In the run up to the Jools gig at the Larmer Tree Festival, I wouldn't have put money on our chances of staying dry - but we were blessed with a bright, breezy afternoon and evening.
Such fabulous grounds - this 'grande arch' not the only interesting piece of whimsy. In one folly, full-size figures modelled and dressed as an elderly vicar and his wife, clutching festival programmes in their fabric fists. Amid the trees, multi-coloured hammocks strung in quiet clearings. Along pathways, mini-avenues of roomy tents with a plethora of healing practitioners enticing festival-goers into their opulent interiors.
An alternative marketplace with stalls selling the usual fare, an artists' corner, beer tents and a separate 'snacksville' area. Brightly coloured lanterns promised a magical effect after dusk - although it was magical in dappled sunlight,too.
In daylight, the main stage somehow benignly innocent of the energy about to erupt... which I only managed to fix digitally as blurry dark shots whose foregrounds are filled with people's backs...
Jools always puts on a brilliant performance. There are many things in this world which transport me to another dimension, and a Jools gig is one of them (though, to be fair, two and a half hours of dancing is likely to create altered perception without Mr Holland et al). Interestingly, the opportunity to see him often coincides with important transitions in my life - which will add to the intensity of the experience...
But it's not simply the music - which is always superb - or the line up (guests included Lulu and Ruby Turner this time), but the passion and verve with which he inhabits showmanship as well as music.
At the Larmer Tree gig, mirror balls in the trees played with the light beams to decorate the leaf canopy, and peacocks called through the night...
Wonderful.
Home about 2am, and since then, time feels like sand in my fingers, as if I overspent from my pleasure bank and am somehow repaying with interest...

getting back in the swing...

Or going with the flow?
An eclectic mix for live n'lippy - aka me & Crysse - to perform to at Bath Poetrycan on Monday, (pic taken by ace haiku poet, Alan Summers - thank you!).

It's not often I'm in town at 9.30am on a Saturday morning, it's NEVER. The first full day of Frome Festival dawned bright and sunny... A batch of 14 writers despatched around shops in Frome...
I wasn't so early in town today that I could grab Alan for a photoshoot with us, though! (He was one of the 14, just not in the pic).
So, back to today... What window would I draw from the hosting shops? (In 2005, I got a real jammy spot, La Strada!)


Up the hill this time, Catherine Hill, to the amazing 'Poot'. As the external shot doesn't do it justice, let me just quote their sign; 'Handmade original delights, clothing and Fox's furniture at "Poot" Catherine Hill'.
No shortage of inspiration, then - though I wasn't at all concerned, trigger writing is never a problem - the quality is something else... I woke on Thursday with the seeds of a poem; such joy is rare, but boded well for this morning.
Back on the hill. Time is doing that loopy business again... whoever said time is chronological is talking through the sphincter which doesn't often see the light...
The narrator in my story just had to be an actor, in these fabulous surroundings... A narrator who decides, in the face of huge temptation, that her chosen career takes precedence over any sexual temptations... Hmmm! Prophetic perhaps... I didn't take an image of the 'prop' I used - maybe I'll go back next week and see if it's still in the cabinet. It would be lovely to post the story with that image...
here I am, nearing the conclusion (cheers, Crysse!) Shame I missed lunch and laughter with Crysse and Ali Clink - oh, the grind of the writer's life! (It gets better...)
Home to check my email (alerted by Mike that he'd sent one) and a veritable mountain cascades into my in-box- but some from my writer friends, which is always a pleasure.
Time for a walk in the sun...
Several years ago, I searched for a suitable place outside my study to motivate me through the novel - if I had to 'go out' to work, as I do for other employment, I figured I could be more productive. Look what I found -the world and all that's in it! (I'll get that novel written yet - I love it when I hear of fantastic writers who work for years on books. After all, I only want to write one novel, if it takes me twenty years I'll have a long and happy life - and also write other stuff; poetry, essays, process books, journals...)
A leg stretching hike to get to this particular branch of Hazel Stewart Inc...
this one with the added bonus of 'private solarium'.Just what the doctor would order (if he could) for my poor skin. So I sat in this field, on a glorious English summer day, and wrote about the fun I'd had with my character. And the people I'd talked to... I wrote about an issue that's getting under my skin a lot these days... and about the wonderful week I've had. How full of wonder, indeed - wonder, poetry, magic and mischief. The midsummer sprites are out in force! And then I walked some more, took some more photos...
My neighbours roses are a delight. Those nodding over the end of my road here are the ones which enchant me with their delicate perfume at the end of every lanes walk variation I meander along.

I went down for a J2O at the street party. Forgot my camera - because I didn't want to take my rucksack. The whole of Frome in carnival mode; a live music stage at the market cross and a seventies rocker outside the Blue Boar, food marquees on one side, tables and chairs on the other, the road thronged with happy people - even a Griffin beer tent! I saw loads of people I haven't seen for ages (some since before Ath was born!). I caught up with Vicky from my Selwood Hospital days, spoke briefly to Lindsay Clarke and his wife Phoebe, to Will Angeloro, to fellow Liquid Jammer (can I say that if I only play with words?) Laurie Parnell, got hugs from Peter Mac and Emily Gerrard, said hi to Kate (who beat me to the job on the media team - no regrets, it was hers!) so I'm glad I went...
and now I'm off to read today's paper.
Bliss is the writer's life!