At last - Lime icecream on South Bank

It was OK.

But now it's broken.

My batteries refuse to recharge

- and for once I'm not talking about the laptop.

I feel like crawling back into bed all the time. It's 12pm on Sunday,
and I already want a nap. Again.
My brain is fuzzy, my eyes are heavy, I've barely done more than load
the washing machine and walk to the High street.
Even espresso has no effect.

Whole Foods Store - sucky customers

Came to the Kensington Whole Foods theme park in search of gelato** and boy, these have to be the whiniest set of customers ever.  I know its a tiny entitled minority, but seriously - in the 10 mins I've been here  - 2 separate snowflakes , one male, one female, standing in the middle of the floor screeching for assistance.  And I mean, screeching.

And then, as I pass through a narrow aisle past someone choosing "tea flowers", the paper bag I'm carrying brushes the back of her legs, and I hear "She pushed me - she just pushed me".

I'm more used to hearing that kind of WASH!!!!  from 4 year olds, and I swear all of these darlings were over 40.

**Ended up trying the Buffalo Milk Ice Cream instead; big mistake, it coats the tongue like lard, and has a very nasty  after-taste.  Ugh.  Threw most of it away.  Will go to Scoop instead.

Can anyone recommend a cheap, small but robust digital camera?

I can't use a camera-phone; not one that I've tried in the past was any
sodding use as, you know, an actual PHONE.

(I couldn't understand why the signal in my London flat got worse with
every passing year, until I was unable to make or take a call at all
unless I walked 50 yards from the front door - then I realised it wasn't
the signal, it was the annual phone upgrade. I bought a £13 Nokia 3310
- the model I had 7 years ago - and BINGO! - a working phone! No
camera, no mp3 player, no apps, no internet, but dammit, I can call the
fire brigade if I need to.)

Anyway, back to the camera - I want to be able to carry something small
that will snap household snakes, and the lesser known North Tyne turkey
bird, and the fairy castle I found in the woods.

There are freaking TURKEYS in the woods!

I though I must be seeing things - that the weird beast dodging among
the sheep was just a very ugly pheasant.
But no, the woods are full of turkeys. Escapes from a local small
holding? No such luck.

Someone has deliberately released turkey chicks onto the land so that
they can run a novelty "shoot your own Turkey" event in December.

Because of course, the practise of releasing non native species into the
wild for sport and profit and shit and giggles has never caused
ecological disaster before now.

After all, it's not as if the land is in a NATIONAL PARK or anything.
It's not as if the local river bank is invested with imported mink, the
water with imported signal crayfish, or that the red squirrels of
Northumberland are disappearing under pressure from imported North
American greys - oh wait!

Luckily for everyone (except the poor Turkeys and unwary drivers) the
birds haven't mastered the green cross code, and are being squished
flat, daily.

Turkeys. Wild Turkeys. Released in the Northumberland National Park.
Without even touching on the ethical issues of shootin' huntin' and
fishin' - who does that?
WHO DOES THAT!!!!

In honour of my Adder

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923
DH Lawrence

(Honestly - I haven't got over the intensity of the pleasure at meeting the Stone Caravan's adder at last.  It was just so magnificently other and like  Lawrence I felt obscurely honoured )

Also I have learned that a small bright fire of twigs will boil a kettle in less than 10 minutes -

- now I keep a basket of dry twigs and bark, gathered beside the grate,
and throw a few on when ever I want boiling water. It's almost as fast
as an electric kettle.

Picking up an armful while I walk across the field is now a pleasant
daily chore, and they smell wonderfully sweet as they burn.

Shifting challenges

When I took on stewardship of the Stone Caravan, the issues I was most
concerned about were damp, spiders and mice.

Four years ago the cottage was festooned with webs, great brown bellying
curtains of them, hanging from every window, across the stairwell, from
the low ceiling beams.

I feared they might be one seasons worth - but I've never found the
cottage to need more than two de-webbing session a year, and then I am
only wiping away the very smallest wisps of white from window frames and
keyholes (it's the draught - it carries small insects through the gap,
into the waiting spidey jaws)

Of course this could be the result of the all conker-ing horsechestnut
eco-friendly spider repellent - I've only sprayed the windows twice in 2
years, but who knows.

The first day I visited my new cottage I found a poisoned mouse expiring
on the doorstep (the same doorstep the adder was sunbathing on last
week). As I cleaned I found little splayed out mouse skeletons in hard
to reach places. And later, when I first lived in the cottage full
time, I just managed their presence - keeping them out of food supplies,
using peppermint oil to deter them, wiping down and sweeping daily,
never allowing food or equipment to come into contact with unwashed
surfaces...

They disappeared entirely 18 months ago, when the cottage was left
uninhabitable by floods, and weasels and owls moved in. And they have
yet to move back in...

The damp?

Well, it's a different place now, I open the door, warm fresh air
streams out, biscuits stay crisp, sugar pours, the bed is dry and aired.

But it is summer, and the winter was a dry one, so I have my fingers
crossed for the months to come.

It's pretty noisy at night right now -

- the ewes are slowly moving away from their adolescent lambs, and no
longer respond instantly to their bleating.

So the dusk is full of horny (literally - they have the cutest iddle
widdle horns) teenagers yelling "Muuuuuuuuummmmmm!
MUUUUUUMMMMMMM!!!!!!" and being ignored.

(I notice that Mum does eventually turn up - when I locked up last night
the sheep were all settling down in pairs and triplets to sleep)

Stone Caravan Summer Pudding

Step over adder.

Chase sheep out of blackcurrant bush.

Pick a mixed bowl of black- and red-currants.

Pick over the currants, (removing wisps of wool as well was twig). Rinse.

Put 3/4s of the currants in a pan with sugar, and pop on a slow fire.

Make tea. Read "Sharpe's Rifles".

When the currants start to bubble, take off the fire, cover and forget
for a while. Read.

Slice a good but slightly stale loaf of white bread. (I got one from
waitrose, reduced to 20p)

Line a pudding basin with the slices of bread, trimming them to fit, and
filling any gaps. Cut a lid and put it aside.

Fill the breadybowl with the cooled fruit, pop on the breadylid, a
saucer, and a tin can to weigh it down.

Forget about it.

Next day - cook the rest of the currants and let them cool down in their
juice.

Some point in the afternoon - turn out the pudding dish, and pour over
the extra currants and juice.

Admire the purpley yumminess.

Eat.

I 'ad an adder in tha house!

Yes folks, after 4 years I finally got to meet the snake what lives
under my house.

I found him/her sunbathing on the doorstep on Saturday afternoon - as I
approaches he/she slithered under the door and into the cottage.

Gorgeous creature, pale gold with a zig zag of dark brown down the back

Snake definitely more freaked out than I was - after all, I as a.)
wearing boots, b.) able to step straight over that arrow shaped head c.)
aware that Adder venom, though painful and temporarily disabling, is
almost entirely non-fatal to fit human adults, and d.) snakes dislike
the presence of humans almost as much as they dislike the proximity of
Gruffaloes.

I just sat on the steps watching Ada (or Adalbert) the Adder, turn tail
and slither back outdoors again.

I must get a new camera for moments like this.

Slow sad tears of frustrated greed

Oh - imagine the anticipation - real life evening events at Royal
Festival Hall! Not just the busy crowded terrace, bar, cafe, gift shop,
exhibitions, libraries, displays and real honest to god mini-favela
built out of brick and leg and fairy
lights...(http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/visual-arts/tickets/project-morrinho-southbank-centre-favela-1000045
- awesome!)

Surely now, as the sunsets over the river, and thousands of Londoners
flock to play on the decks and terraces, and to dance to the
gutpunchingly wonderful beat of the AfroReggae Experience
(http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/dance-performance/tickets/the-afroreggae-experience-54247),
surely now, they would open up the cabinet and exchange the £2.50 in
loose change hoarded in my hot sticky palm all day for the the
specially commissioned Brazil themed Lime and Cacacha nummy nummy
ice-cream ...

At least that's what I told myself ALL yesterday. The thought sustained
me through weary hours of bookkeeping, tick tock on the clock, fly
buzzing on the dusty window sill at work, "ping - you have mail."

6.30pm, there I am, I'll write for an hour, maybe two, to be sure that
I've earned it.

The hall is rammed, everywhere the "ching, ching" of tills, the bars
serving coffee and wine and cakes and pencils which are also drumsticks,
and hot soup....

And in one neglected corner, an icecream chest, with "Festival Brazil"
sticker, and a listing of wonderful icecreams. Unlit, unloved,
unstocked, just un-, un-, un- icecreamed.

Never mind.

I'll make Summer Pudding tonight, with the currants harvested from the
wilderness behind the stone caravan.

Anyone know about car cigarette lighter sockets?

All my stone caravan power woes would be resolved if I could charge my
laptop from the cigarette lighter in the (borrowed) landrover.

But I can't find a plug that fits it.

I understand there are two standard sizes for the sockets, but does
anyone do an adapter to help me plug the charger on one standard into
the socket on the other standard.?

And to add to the angst and frustration....

The Royal Festival Hall is stocking a Caprinha Icecream, by Mingella
Ices, as part of "Festival Brazil".

That's cream, sugar, lime and cachaca - frozen. In a pot. With a
spoon. I want SOOOOOOOO much.

But, because the Royal Festival Hall has no concerts this week, the ice
cream remains locked up in the freezer.

I can buy beer, wine, coffee, sandwiches, soup, pizzery things, and a
selection of gifts.

But no lime and cachaca ice-cream. Even on the lovely yummy HOT
evenings on the river.

All I can do is press my nose to the locked Ice Cream stand and drool a
little, sadly, and wait.

Aghhh Aghhhh Aghhhh

So having arrived back from Ireland with a mountain of work on the
script and no clean clothes, I am praying for an easy week at the
office.... (and not just me, one of the evangelical flatmate's
evangelical mates offered to pray for the same....)

And well, knock me down, what I get instead is an emergency report to be
completed, and FOUR DAYS working from 9am - 10pm, without a lunch break,
to deliver it.

And still no clean clothes...

I'm cream crackered.

How to start, how to start...

I've worked everyday for some 30 or so days (time off during the day, but never the whole day)

The deadline was originally July 7.  I met that (sort of) and got the feedback, and now I have to respond to that with the rest of the draft by August 1.

So I know I'll be working 10-14 hours for the next 17 days.

And I don't know how to start. 

Last week was definitely better spent in Ireland...

... rather than in an isolated off-road two room cottage in woodland in
the Northumbrian countryside.

I left the North on Monday night, just as the first sightings of the
gunman were being phoned in from Rothbury, and watched the search and
the stand-off the next day long distance, from London and Galway,
between meetings at the Film Fair.

Galway was cold and wet and fun and very very successful.

Now London is cold and wet - and I have a mountain of work to catch up
with and I am feckin' well knackered!

At least I'm used to "cold and wet" - growing up in Wales does prepare
you for a life spent under water!
I have gills!

Trust me, this is one of the few occasions when living in a remote cottage in Northumberland does not feel comfortable!

The Stone Caravan is not in the area the police are searching - but it
feels close enough.

I was there until Monday night, before heading to Ireland - if I had
stayed, I reckon I'd be snuggled down in my sister's place, with all mod
cons and neighbours in clear sight!

But, as it turns out, I'm in Galway, for the film festival - after
working 25 days without a break on the latest draft.

I hope I don't nod off, mid-pitch!

Jeremy Kyle has not worn underwear for 20 years!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/03/jeremy-kyle-interview

AUGH!!
I REALLY DID NOT NEED TO KNOW THIS!

It's very strange listening to John Humphries announce that the day
"will be dry but not sunny", when I'm sitting against the porch at 7.30
under a blue sky listening to Radio 4 (on solar power to boot).

Proof positive that the North Tyne valley has its own bizarre climate.

I've been pulling moss out of the guttering - or rather, all the
guttering I can reach. The bull wandered over for a look, blinked and
ambled off again.

As I do it, I am pondering the building of a mini-dyke just beyond the
top gate, to deflect all the run-off from the fell and persuade it not
to flow through the porch. It's only a trickle of water, but its
constant in wet weather, and it floods the loo and turns the garden into
a quagmire and washes relentlessly at the wall of the cottage.

It would have to be at least 2 feet high, wide and as stable as
possible to prevent erosion - I'm thinking of mixing in the remains of
some old (organic - wool and hessian!) carpets to strengthen it, and turf.

If I did that, then I could waterproof and repair the outhouse, (which
is rotting) and if I could do that, I could install a proper
composting/solar loo, and if I could do that, I could let other people
stay here.

Which is very appealing - but that's an awful lot of mud ,stones, carpet
and turf to shift.

This is the first summer for two years I don't have swallows nesting
somewhere in the house.

When I opened the door the breeze blew an irridescent confetti across
the floor; butterfly wings. Red Admirals seem to have settled and died
in every room of the house. ( I rescued two I found bettering
themselves against the window panes. I've no idea how they get in -
perhaps they arrived as caterpillars and pupated in the house?

It's 8pm, and it the sunlight is brighter now than it was at midday.
The last time I slept here was Easter, when sleet was still falling, and
by 4.30 the curtains were drawn. Now I can read on the porch until 10,
and walk through the wood without a lamp at 11.

PS -

The stench of trainers in an unventilated Italian sleeper apartment is
as the fragrance of honeysuckle compared to the range of whiffs
explosively produced by 3 hungover unwashed squaddies drinking carlsberg
and eating egg mcmuffins at 8am on the Peterborough - York stretch of
the East Coast line.

I also have beer on my keyboard.

Quick Summary of the past 4 months

January: Frantic writing to meet deadline for "She Writes" - mentoring
program for British Women in Screenwriting.
Also - a long weekend with Corry and John, travelling through London on
the proceeds of a writer's grant. They'll be living in an apartment in
a hill town in Umbria for 3 months (Bastards!). Made faggots.

February: Frantic writing to meet deadline for a careers conference at
my old school. I have no idea what I can say except - "a career in
screenwriting involves 10 years training and practise and something like
90% of successful screenwriters leave the industry within 10 years of
their break through". Not sleeping well - actually, that an
understatement. By the end of the month I am subsisting on 2 hours a
night. Zombification ensues.

March: Frantic writing to produce new draft of old screenplay at
request. Also write, design and print manage new company brochure.
Still not sleeping - except for the 15 minutes face down on the keyboard
after lunch.

April: Volcanic Ash, Flu and Florence: While everyone was talking about
the new Dunkirk, and repatriating brits from Spain via the Bay of
Biscay, I was heading in the opposite direction, by train to Florence.
It rained and I shared an overnight carriage with 4 terrified teenage
boys. Woke up to rain and the smell of feet. No one can produce
trainer- reek as effectively as a 16 year old male. Or sleep so
soundly. Arrive Florence. Eat Gelato.

May: Writing frantically to meet deadlines for Galway Film Fair. Summer
arrives - even at the stone caravan. Then it disappears again. Obsess
about Gelato.

"The moon is like a toenail, floating in a murky glass of wine"

I was stumbled into a meeting of a group which had "ambitions" to
represent all British screenwriters. It was a glum experience. I had
wandered along with a friend, a producer who had been asked to give an
"update and download" from the Cannes festival, which had finished only
a few days earlier.

It was a glum experience - The venue was a basement, lined many year
before with offcuts of lino and carpet, and furnished with donated
sofas. The audience stayed in their coats (it was cold down there) and
listened politely as the producer described the state of the market,
then, just as politely disagreed with everything he said.

In vain he explained that he wasn't in fact proscribing what writers
should or shouldn't write - he was only describing which scripts - of
all kinds - were making it into production, and how.

I think I understood what was happening. Would be writers spend time in
their heads creating a singular reality. It makes perfect sense to me
that they would continue to do so when they emerged back into the real
world. Sensitive dramas about Polytechnic lecturers facing the mid-life
crisis still not outselling lo-budget horror? La-la-la, fingers in
ears, it's not true.

Then we broke for refreshments. I queued at a trestle table to buy wine
drawn by a volunteer from a wine box. It cost £2.00. I looked down.
There, in my glass, floated the toe nail clipping, a chunky crescent of
keratin that seemed to sum up the evening.

I was invited back a year or so later, by the same friend, who had been
asked by the group's committee to help them increase membership and
income. He wanted them to hear input from a screenwriter who had chosen
not to become a member.

I didn't mention the toenail.

Instead, I told them that I read their e-letter every month in the hope
of finding something relevant, but they only offered the same handful of
classes, recycled endlessly, and which all seemed to be addressed to
small scared animals living in holes under the pavement:

"Want to be a screenwriter? Get over your fears in this friendly
workshop, where we will explore ways of getting your ideas onto the page
- by the end of the afternoon you'll be writing! - £5.00 plus small
charge for tea and coffee"

I suggested that once this might hook beginners, they should attract
working writers to offer master-classes for those were trying to improve
their skills - like impro to improve dialogue writing, or ways to
tighten scene structure, or tips on improving packaging for pitching.
It would cost more - but I, and people I knew, would certainly pay for
the extra value they would offer.

"Oh, no" they replied "writers are poor. And shy. Very shy. Oh no -
we'd never get writers along to classes like that!"

"Most the emerging writers I know are holding down some kind of job, and
are motivated to learn. You can offer concessions if you need to - but
there are also those who can and will pay!"

No - there aren't any writers like that"

"I've met them in screenwriting groups - and at Cannes"

"Writers don't go to Cannes. If they went to Cannes they'd be producers"

"I went to Cannes"

"Writers don't go to Cannes"

It will come as no surprise to you that this organisation, which defined
its membership solely as writers without money who were too shy to
actually, well, write, folded without trace a few months later.

Arrrggghhhh - so unfair!

- I've had a smear of chocolate ice cream on my nose all afternoon, and
no one at work told me.

And yes, this does mean I made it to the Gelato shop. One scoop of
bitter chocolate sorbet, one of raspberry. Mmmmmm....

No icecream in the stone caravan - at least, not now the snow has
(finally) gone.
Inside it's as crisp and dry as a biscuit.

Ok, ok - I am ashamed

Euro is teetering on the brink of a second banking crisis - and I am
still fretting about the availability of ice cream.

I sit at my keyboard fantasising about tall cones of soft icy intensity
- coffee, pistachio, rose, lemon, almond - and then settle for a dash to
the newsagents for a tiny tub of Wall's Cream of Cornish.

Or - maybe - just maybe -

If I write 10 pages in the next 24 hours, I will make the 30 minute
round trip and queue at Scoop in Short's Garden!

The worst thing about our little heat wave is...

... that it is impossible to buy really good ice cream within walking
distance of where I am sitting right now.

I've been spoiled - I spent a weekend in Italy last month, eating gelato
at least once a day - and now a magnum fished out of the freezer bin at
Tescos just doesn't cut it. Too sweet, too rich, no intense shock of
flavour to cut through the milk and ice.

Ahem...

... normal service will be resumed shortly.

Wet, wet, wet

As a neighbour noted at lunch yesterday, I have not enjoyed a single
season of dry weather since moving in to the Stone Caravan three years ago.

Well, not quite.

Spring 2007 was gorgeous. I remember limewashing the cottage in
February in shirt sleeves, then sunbathing on the rock behind the
kitchen. By May the National Park issued an early drought warning, and
banned barbecues and camp-fires. Everything seemed set for a glorious
summer - just as I prepared to quit London and move in. I packed the
hammock, and imagined lazy afternoon under the trees.

Then it started to rain - and it hasn't really stopped since (except for
the not so brief interludes of snow.)

The hillside is like chocolate mousse - and the woods are full of new
springs and streams.

Ah well - the third spring is late, but it is just about here; I saw
primroses in the bank yesterday. Perhaps the arrival of the sun will
finally herald a real summer.

Meanwhile - the Solar dehumidifier continues its heroic work keeping the
H2O at bay.

I just met my weasel - nose to nose...

... over the pond.

I've seen it before - but only as a streak of sleek red fur along the
bank behind the stream.

And I'm certainly familiar with details of its domestic live, having
followed a string a tarry black sprints back to its larder - a dead bird
carefully stashed in a hole in one of my duvets!

But this morning, as I was looking for a sheltered spot to pee in the
little wood behind the garden, I saw a small lithe mammal leap through
the comfrey leaves just below the SolarVenti intake.

And then it popped up to check me out - a tiny ginger critter, with a
white bib and a sharp little face.

Long may he or she (or they) remain, to keep the cottage mouse-free.

oh fer pity's sake...

... it's 11.45 pm and she is *singing* again.

To her ipod. The same whining phrase, over, and over, and over again.

I will need more gin to deal with this.

Tonight I am drinking...

A double shot of gin, over ice in a collins glass, a generous splash of
absinthe, topped up with indian tonic water.

Delish.

Does this have a name?
I don't believe for a second no one has done this before...

Frantically busy...

.... at work, rest and play.

I'm scrambling to finish my application to the Bird's Eye/Scriptfactory
'She Writes' programme - a year of professional development for eight
women film writers.

And I've just waved off guests, John and Corry, who were my very first
(practically my *only*) guests at the Stone Caravan, back in 2007. They
arrived in June in the midst of records rains and flooding. Oh. And
the birth of my second niece (my sister only reproduces during National
Emergencies. It's a hobby of hers...)

This time around I could offer them a better, toad-free, bedroom in
London. Corry is enjoying the fruits of a bursary to finish her novel
about the the regency underworld, and is spending it on practical
research (eating venison at Rules, founded 1797, hot pot at Simpsons,
founded 1757 and staying in Beckford's Tower at Bath).

I wish I could join them in the eccentric old bugger's tower - but I
have the afore mentioned application to finish by Thursday.

Hey ho.

Fear of finishing

I recently finished a short story which had been gathering dust on my
hard drive for almost 3 years.

I had put it aside as unproductive when there are so many other projects
which need work, but someone remembered it and asked if it was abandoned
or not, and suddenly I couldn't bear not to have finished it.

The few days of peace between Christmas and New Year helped, as did the
calm that settled with the snow, and it was done, at about 2am on
December 31st.

By then the fire had died past embers, and it was a cold trip to bed,
clutching a hot water bottle and a copy of "Dead Souls". It took a
while I get to sleep, and I was suddenly aware of a nagging grief that
the story was done, and that particular nest was empty.

I've never noticed this before, but wonder if it hasn't been trundling
along all this time. Perhaps I feel happier with a warm hard drive full
of "works in progress" which may or may not be of any value?

I must finish some more, and find out.

Back in the city just in time to catch more snow

I can't help imagining all the gallons of melt water which will soon be
tumbling off the fell and straight through my porch.