I have returned from Pinewoods.

It was very, very hot in Massachussets, far hotter than I expected, and in fact just as hot as Stratford can be when it tries. I sweated buckets every damnable day, and continued sweating long after sunset, thus attracting a wide range of biting insects. Fortunately, the dress code at TradMaD is such that copious sweating is a problem only to the extent that it causes one's skin to stick to the varnish of the instrument one happens to be playing, and nobody cares if one scratches.

I learned to play the lap dulcimer, so my time was well spent. Himself had a whale of a time, up till the small hours every night and singing himself hoarse. All in all, it was a good holiday.

After two days in our lovely air-conditioned car and two days back in our lovely air-conditioned house, I am still scratching my bug bites and the remains of my heat rash.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I will turn 64, an age I frankly never expected to attain so I have no plans; I rather think I will keep on keeping on. I might vacuum-clean the sitting room carpet, which is beginning to look like a fur-bearing animal.

SRS, congratulations on quitting your irritating office job -- I doubt very much that you have actually retired from gainful employment. When I don't have a paying gig in hand, I like to tell people that I am gainfully unemployed.

Speaking of paying gigs, I finished the Afghanistan book and shipped off the marked-up proof and its PDF files to the publisher. God, but I'm glad that's over -- tho' we were, and are, very grateful for the money. Now I have to ship the bulk scanner off to Ottawa; it's taking up space that should be available for my guitar case.