From the sage pages of Mslexia, advice to "give blogging a go. It is a great way of reaching out, and an exciting way of writing about your life." For me this week it's a way to suffuse my days with the colours I'm missing - those stinging golds and lemon yellows of the Cretan hillsides, the sizzling blues and turquoises of the sea and sky. I blame the sun-block on my Sustainable Frome chums (no of course I'm not serious, I know global warming is Very Important, stop stoning me). I've tried, I really have, to relish the dense veridians of England, to forgive the lowering sky on the grounds that 'we need the rain', but after getting soaked walking and hail-stoned cycling, I'm longing for next weekend when I fly off to Skryos. I'll accept the reproaches and pay my carbon footprint fee to the Big Green Pardoner, because 'til I find a way to live away from these grey skies for longer at one time, these jaunts are my life-nourishment.

But there have been writerly consolations this week, including excursions out: Poetry Can at the Raven where guest Robert Palmer gives a fascinating spiel on Joanna Southcott and I get to see Brendan the Pop Poet's gorgeous little baby Eliza, and a Writers Circle night at Mike's with lotsof good writing and toomuch chocolate.
On Saturday a clash of Titans: Frome Creative Network puts on a hoolie royale, complete with casino as well as ultraviolet-lit disco-dancing cavern, organised by my lovely friend Niamh and attended by the entire dentate community of Frome (and some still teething too.) And Guy Dartnell brings his scratch piece "Something or Nothing" to the Merlin Theatre. Guy is to entrepreneurial Impro what Alan Sugar is to lucretive business and this is a brave and highly watchable scrapbook of personal exploration pasted alongside discursive theorising to answer existentialist questions like 'Who are you?' and 'Is this it?'
How do I know about both? This being Frome, the theatre cancelled the interval for Guy's show so the audience could scoot off in time for the hoolie.