You know you're in a rather special place when the mission statement on the wall reminds guests:
• the 'deity' is in all of us.
• community is an essential expression of, and ground for, it.
• the total environment is also part of this whole and therefore sacred.
So when the taxi for Malaga airport arrived this morning I felt like I'd inadvertently munched Eve's sacred apple and been ejected from Eden. I've just spent a week at Cortijo Romero in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the perfect writing retreat: tranquil workrooms, exotic gardens, pool as blue as the Spanish summer sky, staff who offer not just help but friendship, all of us basking in what my friend Grace calls groundhog-sunshine days.

Slightly fulsome? Wait till I get started on my writing group - the Notable Nine, self-supportive, rapid-responsive, vastly varied, witty, wonderful wordsmiths - a simply unforgettable week.
Add to the recipe: fantastic food, river walks, night dancing, and you see why the long face when I left this morning... except that I took with me their card full of messages, far too personal and generous in praise for me to keep my promise to post on this blog, and though last night it made me cry, it will always make me smile now.

And smiling leads neatly to my Number One reason to be cheerful on re-entering rainy Bristol: an email from Theatre West to say my play Consulting with Chekhov is on their short-list of four under consideration for production in their autumn season.... the readthrough, and I presume the final verdict, will be on Monday. So I'm treading on eggs - or will be when I get my head around the fact there'll be no more of Eda's amazing suppers and I'd better do some shopping....
..