OK, so went away with [tag]family[/tag] to [tag]Slayley Hall[/tag] in Northumberland. It’s beautiful. Pheasants staring at you as you eat breakfast staing at trees and bunny wabbits and wildness.

Strapping healthy groundskeepers and outdoorsy people teaching archery and quad biking and off road driving… Oh, and 3 or 4 hundred golfers puttering around on golf buggies…

Fresh air and hills and silence and splendour and oh god.

It was all so perfect that I didn’t want to leave.

There will be photos when Max Speilman and I chat… (Yes, I still use film camera)
Even my family were… well, you know what it’s like when you change a room round and it looks great and shiny and new for a time before the familiarity sets in? Like that. We were renewed.

Fun was had. Drinking and eating and museums (Go to the Olde Gaol in Hexham if only to see the fatal clashing of modern and ancient architecture… a steel lift!!!!) and SHOPPING and walking and the afore mentioned archery (bruise on my arm to prove it – I am medieval warrior! I hit the balloon!!!!)

Sleep. Bed at 8/9 p.m. most nights and up at 6/7 a.m.

Open curtains and breathe.

And I bought a camel. A foot long (ish) plastic camel.

And now. I am back. Well, back a week ago… But net connection nightmare thing.
But all sorted now. I hope.

Back into the monotony of everyday life.

Maybe, it will all be fine.