I've never been on a coach trip to Bavaria before, and as the day approached I did start to wonder if this might be one of those precious omissions best not remedied. "Ignorance of Großwallstadt is like a delicate exotic fruit: touch it and the bloom is gone," Oscar Wilde might have opined, and I'd have agreed.
But I'd have been wrong.
Thirty-eight members of the City of Bath male choir, plus a dozen of us WAGs and a driver with a penchant for appalling jokes, all survived the trip with remarkable good humour, despite a collision between two tankers on the German motorway adding another 7 hours to our lengthy confinement. And the bits in between - the walks and explorations, the hospitality, and above all the singing - were simply superb.
A lads' trip to a region renowned for beer-drinking was never going to be a scout cubs' picnic, but singing really was paramount: in castle vaults and town squares or beside the river at night, always with an energy which superceded mere collective excellence. 'Zestful' is a good word.
Stunning autumn sunshine helped too, and fascinating unexpected gems of local culture - an apple fair in Miltenberg, a falconry display at Cochem.
Our main stop was in Miltenberg, where the gaudy colours and pointy roofs make the old town look like a children's pop-up book and history, bizarrely, doesn't seem to exist beyond medieval times... don't anyone mention Fawlty Towers here. Despite this sense of important evasions and relentless monoculturalism, we're all made welcome at the concert in Großwallstadt which is the focus of this trip, and the evening ends with conviviality and dancing.
Best bit? The uncliquey cameraderie of the trip, and the enjoyment of meeting so many diverse personalities with one thing in common: the passion to sing their socks off.

So maybe that's the secret of a successful Choir trip: take 3 score good-humoured men with zest, great voices, and lots of socks.

Heart-cockles-warming corner: arriving home to a message from Karen Mcleod whose debut novel "In Search of the Missing Eyelash" has been published by Cape with high praise and several translations. Karen is charming enough to attribute me with giving her 'good intelligent advice' during her first steps on the 'long, strange and sometimes arduous journey' that extended her opening line ("I woke up in a foreign armpit") and won her this year's Betty Trask award and - though Karen says it's taken a few months to sink in - the right to call herself an author. You go for it, girl.
..

Just back from a long weekend in the wilds of Lancashire walking with my friend Anya in the Ribble valley with no real writerly news, unless you count winning a bottle of fizz at a charity raffle from Fizz off Coronation Street. We - Anya and me that is, not Corrie's Fizz - also went to see romany clairvoyant Omar about whom I can only say: if you're more comfortable with scepticism don't go anywhere near him as he'll seriously rattle your cage.

Off next to Großwallstadt in Bavaria on a charabanc trip with the Bath Male Voice Choir, so there will now be a short intermission.

Omitting to celebrate National Poetry Day is against the poetic Hippocratic oath of Frome, so Monday saw the Library Writers' Group musing and poesying on this year's theme of dreams. Some great pieces emerged, several of which were read in the evening at a small but very pleasant event with a dozen poets - Rose Flint among them - presenting their words at the Poetry Dream Cafe. I especially enjoyed the interval poem created by the entire audience from songs with the word 'dream' in. We got 26 - 'Nights in white satin' and 'The night has a thousand eyes' allowed, but 'Yellow is the colour of my true love's hair' a tad too far-flung.

I've been immersed in reflections on family relationships recently, partly in response to the C4 programme 'Bringing Up Baby' which takes viewers to the fortress of horrors which is the Truby King rearing method of child-rearing. TK was a (male) vet who noticed that calves removed from their mothers gave up wanting or expecting any contact, essentially. Special features of his method are fresh air (all day alone in the garden) solitude (all night alone in a separate room) and no cuddles or eye contact. Claire Verity, the (childless) expert, scoffs at the idea of holding a baby close. 'You're not a kangaroo' she points out acidly. My fascination is not academic: I was 'a Truby King' baby according to my mother, proud of her potty-training. 'Babies who feel abandoned can't learn to trust relationships' is the point arising repeatedly in studio discussions. I'm reminded of all this listening to Colin Firth talking about his new film 'Voyage round my father'. "With every good story, wherever it's set, you feel it's your story." His childhood, he says, left him feeling an outsider, but he's never regretted it - "you see everything with two pairs of eyes" - as the first requisite to be an actor is being confused and seeking attention. Maybe that's true of all creativity. It's a better route than deploring the unalterable past, anyway. I was going to post a pic of sour-faced Ms Verity here but decided Mr Firth in his classic wet-shirt moment is more attractive.

The monthly Fromesebury Group met this week: Debs has delivered her Ultimate Help Manual for supply teachers, and Debby Holt's new book 'The Trouble With Marriage' - "another astute study in relationships" predicts The Bookseller - is out early next year. "There's nothing like humour to encourage a proper perspective" says Debby in her article on why she writes romantic comedies.

Another good-humoured meeting: Words @ Frome Festival convened for snacks, drinks, and consideration of the matter in hand: viz What the bloody 'ell's going on? as Rosie as chair succinctly put it. No-one knows. Festival founder Martin Bax has resigned, and the future of Frome Festival without an artistic director hangs in the balance. With 5 new members on the literary team we decide to continue whatever the outcome, and ideas for 2008 events come flooding in - a mix of old favourites and new ideas. Can we fix it? Yes we can!

Chronicles of Wasted Time corner: I've just found a great facebook group: Procrastinating Writers -"A hang out for all writers who are finding Facebook the perfect place for procrastination. Share your procrastinating tips, online games, pointless applications here."
Well done Kate Harrison for providing that necessary service for idling scribes. I've already trashed a happy hour posting pix of Cyprus & intend to loll here often.
...

Spent most of the week catching up with my shadow after a week in Cyprus sun, glad to emerge on Friday for the launch of Three Corners' new CD, fabulously titled 'Stone Age Genes in the Digital Era.' Luscious sensuous stuff, great music and haunting songs. I could survive life easier without books than without music, but my reviewing skills are crass: can I dance to it? and do I like the words? so for a more intelligent appreciation go to their website for the downloads.

Saturday spent poring over aims, strategies, solutions and flapjacks with the Merlin team at The Mill in Rode. Diverse perceptions released by the word game - tempting to make fridge poems with words like INVISIBLE MISUNDERSTOOD CHALLENGING LONELY HARD - good to find concensus with INSPIRING and CREATIVE.

Somewhat belatedly, I've just realised the wonderful Poetry Library on South Bank is open for business again, hurrah. I must hie me there forthwith. Also want to see the Millais exhibition at the Tate - reviewed as "mawkish manipulative masterpieces" - my father's favourite painter after Renoir. He once sweetly likened me to the girl in Les parapluies... possibly the fringe that did it.
Weather again, you see. Even blogging I always take the weather with me.

Foraged facts corner: Less than 40% of people ever buy a book... and of these less than 40% buy less than 2 books a year. That's a lot of lesses. I stole this from Clare Dudman's blog which I often browse for intriguing titbits. Some great pix of snails, too.

PS see what I mean about the fringe? Wish I still had those suede shoes. That's my first wedding, no doubt not the only bride in a psychedelic mini that year but probably the only one with visible hem tacking.
'67 is hot this week on Radio 1 too. I've been enjoying the 40 years-ago-today celebrations all week, fantastic covers like Keane's Under Pressure and vintage greats like Stairway to Heaven and Smoke on the Water... and Beatles too of course. Sergeant Pepper was the backdrop to that summer like no music ever can be these days of diversity and headphones. I'm not mourning, just mentioning.

I’ve noticed it before: that night-drive home from Gatwick acts as a kind of eraser, smudging my vivid recollections into a blur of heat-hazy blue horizons with only highs and lows etched unforgettably.
Waking at dawn in Agios Georgios as collared doves croon and stepping directly from our patio into the pool, that’s indelible. Basking on the soft sand of Turtle Beach & floating in the translucent shallow water of Lara Bay. Sipping beer in shady courtyards, scrumping figs, watching sunsets.
And of course, the cycling – my raison d’etre for a week in the Pathos region was to test-ride the Headwater holiday ‘Secrets of Cyprus Cycling.’ One of those ‘tough job but someone’s got to do it’ assignments. The organisers provide the bikes, book the hotels, and transfer our luggage. Our task is to cycle past olive groves and vineyards watching the sunshine dazzle on the Mediterranean, stopping occasionally for cool Keo until we reach the next friendly hostelry where our bags and supper table are waiting.
And write about it, of course, ideally with enough enthusiasm to encourage others to leap into the saddle and experience the joys of freewheeling 9 kilometres from Kathikas down to Coral Bay and chicaning along the unmade paths of the Akamas to secluded beaches where the turtles lay their eggs and the rare wild lilies grow.

In this idyll, can there be any lows? There was that feral cat that jumped into our moussaka. The occasional peripatetic mosquito.
My main gripe, though, is serious
– and I'm part of the problem.
It’s the English.
Last time I was in Cyprus was 5 years ago and I stayed in a rural village in the central area. I was besotted with the harshly beautiful landscape, the gypsum hills, ochre grassland, scorching blue of the sky. I walked for miles, and resisted expat dinner invitations, preferring my balcony with figs and halloumi cheese and local wine watching the sun set. And during this time I saw a tiny house in a lemon grove which was up for sale for £24,000 and if I’d had any way of raising that much money then I’d have bought it.
So I’m not standing in judgment from any high moral ground. I understand why the entire coast, and even fertile farming land, is smothered with new-build holiday-homes like virulent nappy rash. It’s the dream for so many of us: sun, sea, sand, and sound property investment. Only, with prices ten times higher and air travel unsustainable in cost as well as carbon footprint, it seems impossible this goldrush bubble won't burst. Thousands of bougainvillea-edged pools, while Cyprus reservoirs are gutted after two arid years. Thousands of quickly-constructed edifices locked up empty for months, in place of the rural families that gave the land its energy and spirit.
Well, I don’t want to come across like a glum Green Meanie, but believe me, these ‘English hills’ gave us much to ponder as we cycled.
..... It's the rich that get the pleasure,
..... It's the land that get the shame,
..... It's the same the whole world over,
..... And we're all to bloody blame.

Bristol's BIG MOUTH CABARET, the last before comperes Rosemary & Tom take a year's sabbatical, was a monster bash of performance poets with a glittering line-up that lured me & Hazel to St Paul's Crypt at open-door time on Tuesday. Quite unnecessary of course, poetry events are required by statute to start late. "All we're doing is putting the pieces of the jigsaw together on your behalf" Byron Vincent explained inscrutibly, presenting macabre characters from mentalist mates to the Marquis de Sardines. Byron claims to have a pact with fellow poet Nathan to perform only new work from now on; I applaud the intent but mourn the passing of such surreal lines as "the finding of the baby, the swapping it for glue". Jude Simpson brought the cream of her Edinburgh set, with 'Secret Rapper' as cherry topping.
After Dr Joel's musical interlude, Nathan Filer presented his usual - self-styled - political, pertintent, poignant pieces, with his usual stylish eccentricity. I hope the ode to Wikipedia doesn't join the list of now-abandoned love poems. Headliner Elvis McGonagall had terse words on Tony Blair for "skipping off to the Middle East and taking 10 minutes of my set with him" but is making a start on analysing the Brown bounce: "brooding psychopath, now a love god?". A great set, with welcome returns from David Cameron and James Blunt among others. Poetry's been called the new rock'n'roll, with Elvis the new Elvis and Byron an Arctic Monkey, and there's a truth in the triteness: new material is essential, but us fans love the oldies too.

Still on spoken words, I'm delighted to see producer Howard has put another track, alphabetti serendipity, from our upwardly-mobile DVD out on Youtube. Launch of Crysse & Hazel, Live & Lippy, is October 26th at the Madabout Words cabaret in the Merlin foyer.

And now for something completely different: The Importance of Being Earnest, which opened at Bath Theatre Royal on Wednesday. A satisfyingly no-tricks production, exquisite visually. Much choreography had gone into being-seated styles and the parasols seemed like members of the cast. Penelope Keith had the onerous accolade of single billing on the posters and responded by under-playing Lady Bracknell’s utterances in a manner that may have rotated Edith Evans in her grave. The interrogation of Jack Worthing, designed to have that young man and the audience trembling with apprehension & awe, was conducted more like a cosy interview with a potential care worker. But everyone looked wonderful and the tableaux were great. A lovely evening.

Change of mood again: now well warmed-up to watch others perform, I spent all Thursday at the Merlin Theatre where 30 different acts were show-casing work “Made in Somerset”, watched by delegates from all over the SW & beyond. Impossible to see all, but I managed six - including drama ranging from Festival of Fools’ spontaneous theatre to carefully plotted monologue pieces, and contemporary dance from local heroes Stetsaphunk’s hip hop to Mark Bruce Company’s innovative explorations. Home, groggy with imagery & words, to pack: Peter & I are off cycling in Cyprus next week. Weather forecast: 34 C & climbing…
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'Well done to you all for finding Shropshire' was our greeting at The Hurst. Well done to the Arvon for finding such a wonderfully easygoing, good-humoured group, trawling from Sydney to the States. A great week, stimulating and thought-provoking, though it's left me temporarily unable to construct a sentence without wanting to savage it.
Jane Austen declared she would write about "a heroine whom no one but myself will much like" but even that felt difficult to me with our theme of 'I remember'. Can't blame the tutors for that - Mark Haddon and Will Fiennes were both brilliant, generous with their time & support and munificent with their their epigramatic gems.
"Being in love with language is a way of being in love with the world" says Will, and shows us the oak tree outside, its higgledy-piggledy silhouette and lobate leaves in fists. Quirkus Sessile. "All writing is the act of giving names."
Mark reminds us that the writing part is only half the equation. "Everything you write has to entertain. Readers don't need explanations, we want to know what happened next."
Every session is hands-on, every exercise reinforces the message: what matters in writing is concrete details and rhythmic qualities. Afternoons are times for writing and walking; this is a fabulous location, with forests behind us and a lovely walk along the lanes to Clun where John Osborne, who lived here, is buried. Evenings are times for listening to our tutors sharing their words.
"Does it get easier?"
"No."

Home just in time for the Writers Circle barbecue hosted by gourmet chef Mike, a brilliant night.

"It is a lovely hybrid form, a cross between a poem and a novel. The short story allows us in a short space of time to understand huge things, huge dilemmas. They don't hang about. They don't waste any time. They swoop down and get you like a sea gull diving down to take the bread from your hand." - Jackie Kay, and more, on an excellent short story site I discovered. Jackie quotes Chekov's view of the craft: ‘It is better to say not enough than to say too much, because I don't know why!'. After last week I feel I know why, it's how that's hard.

Well, it's all over, the revelry and the rows, the longings and the letdowns. I'm not sure if I'm talking about that masquerade of a summer or Big Brother but either way, just Deal With It. (Semantic aside: interesting how BB has changed the meaning of the word ‘Eviction’ to a moment of personal triumph. Chanelle was ‘getting my Eviction after all’ when she left the house in a sexy basque to cheers from the crowd; Ziggy in his mea-culpa moments moaned 'I don't deserve an Eviction'.) It's become difficult to talk about these things - freaky weather that is, not BB gossip - as more horror stories are uncovered in the ashy rubble of burnt-out Greece. I feel hypocritical, knowing I'm one of those who relishes a standard of living that's part of the problem... my car, my journeys to find the sun... but I had an interesting conversation this week with a friend who believes it's too late anyway now to plaster up the damaged planet and our task for the next decades is to accept and adapt. He's visited African communities which are finding pragmatic responses to extreme change - ironically, our concepts of which global cultures dominate and which are 'third world' need to be inverted if any of us are to survive.
In the meantime, as the autumn handover begins at the signal of wayside black-berries, I've been enjoying local things like walking the woods & lanes, garden suppers, and swimming in the river at Warleigh Weir - a wonderful Bank Holiday alternative to sitting squodged among seaside-tripper traffic.

And now I'm off to Shropshire for a week - a chance to reconnect with my own writing at The Hurst, apparently the former home of John Osborne. It's set in 30 acres of woodlands, so I'm hoping for lots of walks as well as dramatic inspiration.

Edinburgh on Saturday night is like a gothic fairytale city, with glimmering silver lights in the trees, turrets & spires all shrouded in mist. Actually everything above umbrella-height is shrouded in mist, the deluge is biblical, quaint cobbled streets are grimy rivers, and it’s seriously cold. I’m staying with my friend S in her lush flat in easy walking distance of all the venues, so no excuse to gripe, even though the weather is frankly cataclysmic.
First event on my Spoken Word wish-list is PoeJazzi at Sweet Grassmarket, a medley of performance poetry featuring a different line-up every night, which I guess has pros and cons. I especially like Joshua Idehen’s strong words and surprising personas - “My name is Cupid and I am an alcoholic” - PoetiCat’s sad sensuousness and scarlet wellies, and the guy who sang about a shark with a peanut allergy. Cold weather affects people different ways; for me, its humour I crave. And soup.

Sunday morning. The rain’s abated and the streets have a damply festive air – or would have if it weren’t for these grey clouds pressing like an obese stomach against the skyline of the city. The Promoters Breakfast is like a sweat-lodge but with fistfuls of flyers flapping in your face. There’s no coffee left so I make for the calm of the Andy Warhol exhibition and push silver pillows gently around for a while. Very therapeutic. I had a Warhol’s Marilyn teeshirt back in the 70s but never realised the artist’s emotional range. His friend Henry Geldzahler apparently encouraged him away from soup cans by saying “That’s enough affirmation of life. It’s time for some death.” I loved the early drawings, like visual e e cummings, and after a while began to see those hallmark repetitions as moments removed from linear time and abstracted into pure reality. Or maybe I just need coffee.
Off to find a café with mellow music & Sunday papers, then check out the festivality in High Street. It’s a bit like Las Ramblas and Glastonbury crossed: silver statues, strummers, buskers, beggars, bagpipes, and all the jingle-jangle juggling street theatre scene – including poet Kat Francois on a podium, giving a sample of her show. “I’ve exposed myself to strangers, I’ve shown my humanity” she says.
Personal exposure is an ongoing theme. Luke Wright tells what it’s like to be a ‘Poet and Man’ in 8 chapters, each featuring apt quotations (Simone de Beauvoir, Freud, Avril Lavigne…) witty anecdotes and bloody brilliant poems. My friend S, unfamiliar with the genre, is now a convert to performance poetry. No wonder Luke’s had awesome reviews, using words like "genius", “blinding talent”, “born performer" and “spearhead of the poetry revival." We rush back her flat to watch BB On The Couch, sipping Sancerre, until it’s time to go back to the Pleasance for Nina Conti, a ventriloquist apparently transfixed by the anal aspects of hand puppetry - vulgar but funny; less successful when she puts on a flat cap to be her grandfather. Home for pumpkin soup.

Monday already. S and I have breakfast at Valvona & Crolla, a posh Italian deli, and then on to the Gallery of Modern Art to see Richard Long, whose markings of ephemeral moments impressed me 30 years ago but seem disappointing and unradical now. It’s the permanent collection I most enjoy – especially the picture of “Two peasants resting” painted in 1922 by war artist Albin Lienz, which has a Don McCullin-esqe sombreness. My friend S points out that BB’s Liam takes a similar posture, proving that in a society deprived of war, conflict over a piece of toast can produce the same physical posture of resolute dejection.
Today the sun is actually visible, so I walk back through the Botanical Gardens to Pleasance for Jude Simpson’s Growing Up Games: another brilliant hour of bouncy poesy and personal exposé, with some audience interaction and a few non sequitors like 'Anyone else ever ring the Insurance Helpline just to say the word “premium"?' I love her Spinsta Rap (‘I gotta crochet hook, I’m not afraid to use it’) and her conclusion: 'Grown-up-ness really means the ongoing journey of discovering more about ourselves and our relationships.'

The sun has brought out yet more crowd-pleasers and teasers: coffins, invisible men, brass bands, bagpipes, unicyclists, fire jugglers.. and did I mention the bagpipes? Even the binmen, wheeling their trophies through the crowds, look like street theatre. I check out the Book Festival over in Charlotte Square, then go back across the city to Zoo for ‘My Filthy Hunt’, because it got a 5-star review in The Scotsman. How the m******f**k**g f***k? did that happen? as any one of the cast might say. A sad foulmouthed weep-fest, on a par in terms of credible emotion with Dawn French’s “Titanic” spoof. The cast of four strip promptly then prowl around glaring at the audience, talking of sex, violence, violent sex, and The Meaning of Life. At this nadir moment I recalled Luke Wright saying when he was 15 he used to write about the meaning of life but now prefers to focus on significant details, like Central Trains.
I stop at Charlie’s wine bar on the walk back, where a woman on a mobile is telling someone “…the whole audience smelt like wet dog. I’ve seen some lovely stuff and I’ve seen some shit, I can tell you.”
As it’s my last night, I’ve opted for trad stand-up at Underbelly: Rob Deering, a very funny comic who plays a mean guitar – mean in the sense of wickedly satiric. Leonard Skynard will never sound quite the same again.

Tuesday morning, drizzling again. Time for one last event: Ravenhill for Breakfast, half an hour of drama at the Traverse Theatre, different every day. Today’s is Armageddon, a powerful piece about two lonely people absorbed in their own isolation, recalling once again that recurring question: what does it really mean to be grown-up?
Lots to think about on the long journey south. Like the lady said ‘I’ve seen some lovely stuff and some shit’ and now I’m glad to be stepping out of Bath station to soft butterscotch-icecream tones of the buildings after the endless grim tombstone grey of Edinburgh, and seeing our comely rounded hills on the skyline instead of gaunt rocks. Peter texts me: cool pinot grigiot is waiting. And it is…

What-i-did-on-holiday part 2: foraging for edible wild plants in a field in North Devon. A greenhorn in plantains & pink purslane, not knowing my sorrel from my dock (much bigger - you stuff them like vine leaves) this crash course in Chagford opened my eyes and now I can rustle up a salad of mixed wild leaves as fast as you can say 'Er, no thank you.'
I wasn't so keen on the pan-fried dandelion roots, I have to admit, but gathering everything in the sunshine was terrific fun.

Peter's now back from frolicking at Arvon, if tutors are allowed to frolic, and we had a great weekend staying with poet & publisher Nick Johnson. Nick was performing at The Great Create and left us to enjoy ourselves in his amazing ex-Post-Office bohemian pad (yes, some places are still pads) so we did. According to Steve Spence "Nick Johnson is a one-off, ploughing his own lonely furrow through the thickets of the postmodern pastoral lyric... the poetry world would be less rich without him." North Devon would, too.

Quirky corner: some of my favourite blogs, for candour as well as creativity, are by poets, like Rosemary Dun and Luke Wright, & while browsing Luke's I found Rob's challenge to any poetry lover: what makes a lyrical hook? I took his 2-line test, and started thinking about openers I've found irresistible. In my emo-teens it was Keats:
NO, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
wolf's bane tight-rooted for its poisonous wine
and I'm a sucker for Brian Patten's melancholy musings, like:
And in numerous city gardens
long legged girls left alone bow low among the trees

A random picture I took between thundery showers at Heaven's Gate above Longleat today. Can't think of a link for it.

quick ps: my friend writer Alison Clink has just discovered a couple of her recently published stories approvingly reviewed in an anonymous blog by womagwriter. Mm.. mysterious. Looks a useful site for anyone submitting to womags though.

Miracle Theatre Company brought the Taming of the Shrew to the Ecos amphi-theatre this week on a blessedly balmy night, allowing the audience to picnic among the stones before settling down to laugh their socks off at this wonderful contemporary staging of Shakespeare's first drama. It's considered one of the 'problem plays', relying as it does on psychological cruelty to bully an incipient feminist into near-bovine submission, but with these 5 actors there's never a queasy moment, though many delightful cheesy ones. It was easy to believe this bored Kevin-the-teenager-Kate could be entranced by the New-Agey anarchism of Paddy/Petruchio as he dragged her away from bourgeois academe and cuddled her on hilltop in the rain - helpfully provided by a relay of watering cans. 'Pick up the grass' he instructs his bride as she gathers the camping equipment at the end of their scene, and Kate obediently carries the set offstage too. Five stars, def.

And now I'm planning my long weekend at Edinburgh Festival - short but hopefully spicy. I want to catch Luke Wright's show and as many other Spoken Word events as I can cram in.

I always have a pile of by-my-bed books on the go - currently Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything, Small Island still unfinished, The Blood of Strangers by surgeon-poet Frank Huyler, and Esme Ellis's extraordinary biography Pathway to Sunrise - and since my birthday another three: Ian Sinclair's 'Edge of the Orison' tracking John Clare's long walk in 1841 when he fled the asylum; 'Unaccompanied Women' by Jane Juska (the American sexagenarian who advertised for lust partners in the New York Review and had enough adventures to fill a best-selling book - a theme to interest any writer attempting to reclaim the notion of 'elderly' as more than a roadsign warning of dodderer hazard), and Moon Palace by Paul Auster. The prose style this last one seemed initially unencouragingly stolid yet strangely compelling, and now I'm finding moments of iridescence. Look at this, glimmering suddenly in a rather maudlin backstory: "Like all the Foggs, he had a penchant for aimlessness and reverie, for sudden bolts and lengthy torpors." I paused to muse on my personal penchants.
"..for restlessness and obsessive notetaking, for addiction to heart-beat rhythm music and laughter, and a perverse persistent sense of being an outsider in her own life"... Well, it was 3 a.m.
Looking at these diverse titles I realise they're all about journeys in the Rilke sense that "the only journey is the one within." And maybe in the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin sense too: "We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey." I'm currently editing an anthology on the theme of 'transit' for the very talented Santiago Writers, so it's a notion much on my mind.