The Easter break has been - and gone...

It's past the witching hour, so I should be heading back through the dream gate rather than firkling about in cyberspace, but so much time seems to be slipping through my fingers... I wanted to do justice to the NHCN conference, rather than merely mention it in passing - particularly as there were some very special moments, with deep inner resonance for me... I have a sheaf of notes jotted in bed on the Friday night, scrawled in the car on Saturday night, and more on my return, but... work and life intervened. Maybe there will be time before October! Or maybe some experiences are not to be shared, but simply hugged close to the heart.

No surprise that by Easter Sunday's walk, I'm thinking in lines of poetry - writing time squeezed down to words rather than pages...

today I walk with sadness
a leaded feather mantle
the Easter sun cannot warm
memories of a night-long lover's hug
on journeys through the dreamgate
tantalisingly incomplete.

Easter Monday - Mells Daffodil Day - Crysse and I walked over this year; last year we cycled. We sat with Siegfried again, and wrote a few lines.

The walking, the walking over the last four days has been wonderful. In bright hopeful Spring sun, therapeutic and grounding, energising and mood-lifting. Walking allows me to stay with my emotions, and release them naturally back to the earth, in safety and solitude.

I met a woman yesterday who has lost a close friend to hep C. Forty-seven - only two years older than me... I've asked her to write some words about her friend for me to post here, and give me something symbolic to take on my journey to Nepal.

My life seems to abound with such synchronicities at the moment. I'm continually touched by totally unexpected offers of support - an email from a haiku poet tonight offered performance at any events we have in the pipeline.

Tonight, I met two women who live and work in Shetland. I've always been intensely jealous of the writers who go there for months on end (though I don't fancy winter there - I'm too much of a sap!) I took one look at the photo of the view from Jill's window and just dissolved - such an idyllic coastline vista... Maybe I'll get there yet - what more perfect place to write...

Tonight's posh dinner at the Pump Rooms in Bath was pretty cool, too. Drinks around the hot spring pool, meeting some of the conference speakers... That too, felt like a gift. The food was delicious, and the company at our table varied and entertaining. Much more fun than I expected.

And so to bed - or I shall be too tired to enjoy the conference!