Charlie dropped me a note and I thought I'd post an expanded version of my reply here as it turned into a kind of a blog.

I've been reading Charlie's poetry and was totally knocked out by her poem "Still". Look her up and read it - be prepared to have your heart broken.

For my part I'm just sprinting to stand still this summer, so not really much on the poetry front, although I did experiment with speaking lines into a machine and scribbled a few onto scraps of paper one day when life overwhelmed me. The idea was to type them up afterwards, but there hasn't been time or "head space". I have almost finished a short story, though, about a technophobe who gives up her job when a computer lands on her desk and goes off and buys a milking goat. I'd try it myself, but I just cannot stand the taste of goat milk.

I've also been doing a (hopefully) final read through of the book collaboration Green Living, Sacred Life. The file containing the entire text seemed to upset my publisher's computer and things went awry. I've been picking up drips and dribbles of text from all over the place and putting them back where they belonged. A long slow job and now I have to get all the corrections over to Jon Day at Capall Bann so the book can finally go to print.

We've had two camping holidays this summer. It should have been one, with my son and his family, but after booking the first in Elvaston, Derbyshire near the castle, they discovered they couldn't go, so we booked a second in Wales. It should have been a fairly reasonable journey, but number one son had mistaken Aberteifi for Aberdyfy andit turned into eight hours of ups and downs. For those not familiar with Wales, it's got hills and mountains, but not much flat land - exactly the opposite of our part of England. The Derbyshire photo's are online on my Facebook page. If you're a member, look up "Cloverfield Safari" in photo's. Not sure what security settings I put on it, but I think everyone is allowed to see it.

We also had one offspring hospitalised. On recovering she and her man decided to marry this summer. That's been another joyously hectic run around trying to get it all organised. Almost straight after the big day my husband and I are off to France with my brother and sister in law, which means we won't be able to give the newlyweds a lift to the airport for their honeymoon.

Every single resource has been at full stretch. I intend to hibernate through the entire month of September... apart from a series of writing workshops at Warwick university, which really can't be missed - oh and a visit Cambridge where I'll be meeting some American friends for a coffee ... and my birthday ... hmm maybe September will be a little busy too.