Catching up

To Alnmouth yesterday with m'new friend Carol, to see Val and Kelly and to be one of Kelly's surprises for her birthday (the others being her parents, freshly flown in from America, and a stack of 'Laverne and Shirley' videos).

Had a really good day (including but not limited to a bottle of vintage Roederer Cristal - the '99, since you ask - which was just one of the nicest things I've ever encountered in a glass: toast and butter, foie gras and apples and citrus...) and a good night to follow, and stayed up to watch Superbowl till Sleep dragged me off by the ankles, Sleep not wanting to watch Prince in the halftime show...

And sat long over coffee & talking this morning, which was also good and one of my favourite aspects of housevisiting, the morning after; and so home full of good intentions, but I took one look at the half-finished story and bounced. Have been trying to close with it all afternoon, and have written half a page; which is worse even than the 500 words I've been averaging for the last week of working on it. Bah, humbug.

Now I shall cook chicken & mushroom & leek risotto, and eat it, and go to the theatre to see 'Woman in Black', and be scared.