See You in a Fortnight

I have been worn out. Round and round the field as if it is going out of fashion. Is it going out of fashion?

Is something else going on?

Is someone not telling me something?

What are all those boxes in the hall?

I have admitted defeat and decided I can't get round everyone's journal thanking them for their comment on my 500th blip - but thank you all very much. Know that it is appreciated.

I finished work at gone 9:00pm last night and need to do another couple of hours today, just to ensure everything is ready to pick up on my return.

And then we're gone. As I type the sun is out, and I am certainly ready for a rest.

A few other things - we will have very little signal whilst we are away so I have made the decision that I will backblip on my return. This is mostly because a holiday represents a chance to experiment properly with my camera and I will be unable to upload these images without a whole load of hassle.

The other decision I made was that moving forward - whilst I expect Maud to predominate in this journal she won't be the only feature. Of which more, later.

Finally, whilst I'm away I am going to complete the Dart 10k swim which many of you have generously supported me to do - this is a fundraising event for the youth theatre - soon to be the Burnley Arts Centre (home of Burnley Youth Theatre.) Think of me (and my enormous shoulders) on the 14th September, 2013 - and for those of you who have asked for the link - it's here

See you on the 16th September - or thereabouts!

Late Edit. I am utterly bereft by the death of Seamus Heaney. If you haven't read any of his work you should - The Death Of A Naturalist was the first proper poetry I read and I suddenly realised what I'd been missing. This is my favourite piece from The Cure at Troy - this is a terrible recording but I love the piece. Liam Neeson does a version but I can't find it. Here some of it is: (it's one of the few things I know off by heart.)

from The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.

History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.