Absence

So tell me, have your hearts grown fonder...?

('Course they have! It's the rule.)

Went a bit quiet there; sorry 'bout that. There are those who will argue no doubt that it's all about the alcohol; Chaz doesn't drink, he doesn't post. Me, I say: post hoc propter hoc? Do I really need a prop to post? Not I. The silence was occasioned by distraction: I had Karen here, and then we both went away.

I am back now. Karen is klwilliams is halfway up a Welsh mountain with la_marquise_de_ and mevennen and a lot of other writers, committing the UK edition of Milford; I have survived FantasyCon alone and without alcohol, and am returned.

The very best news, which I am now privileged to share, is that la_marquise_de_ (Kari Sperring to her non-LJ friends) has won the Sydney J Bounds Award for Best Newcomer with her novel Living With Ghosts. I got to pick it up for her, on account of mountains in Wales etc. I felt a teensy bit of a fraud, posing for the obligatory photos with the Best Newcomer award, but hey. One does what one can for one's friends. I shall deliver it to Kari on Friday. I'm not wholly convinced that she's going to like it as an object, but she is thrilled to little bits to have the winning of it. I understand there were bottles of champagne in the car heading Wales-ward, to be drunk once the announcement was made.

Speaking of alcohol, I am now allowed to drink again. I wasn't quite sure I wanted to, indeed I was positively nervous about it after nine days' abstinence, but I thought I might need to get back into shape again pre-Provence: and how right I was. It don't half make your head spin...