To whom it may concern, I am off on holiday from the 9th to the 16th of August which means no bulletins from the kitchen next week.

 

I will be sitting still most of the time, unless propped up eating, or reclining (sleeping), but I just might lift up my hands high enough to read a book - several tasty novels await my attention.

This is a much needed holiday after a few weeks of frantic activity. Next year I’ll remember that I can’t pretend the school holidays are not happening and that it is not possible to assistant edit Magma Poetry, write an article, run The Shuffle, help with the Shuffle Anthology and work my own first pamphlet, (Rock’n’Roll Mamma due out from Flarestack in September). My younger daughter said to me this morning (I was up at 7, tapping away) ‘You love your computer more than you love me’.

 

I suppose work on my own poems was the dispensable bit in all this except that I might die without that strand of my life in place.

 

I have not been in contact with most of my dearest friends over these weeks, because there just hasn’t been any time. If any of you are reading this, I hope you will forgive me. I miss you all.

 

However ...

 

Expect me back chilled, tanned and ready to rock’n’roll again.