Pa may be seventy-two. But he still feels like he’s seventeen. Not in his bones. Or in his muscles. Or maybe even in his mind. But in the part of him that makes him…him. It’s like the last fifty odd years just happened around him while his being stood still. And that being..that thing that stares out his eyeballs….the thing that can’t get its head around what its body wont do…is the thing that matters.

Pa feeds a cast-iron furnace when he’s cold. Climbs into the mountains with empty gallon jugs when he’s thirsty. I press a button to adjust the heat and pull a tap to fill my glass, and feel terrible about it every time. Because my grandfather shouldn’t have to have it so hard. Even if he wants it that way.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I didn’t look at her when I said it. When I said “Elsie’s baby done died.” Because there weren’t no point in it. She couldn’t look back.

“Elsie’s baby?”

“Yep.”

“Elsie’s baby done died you say?”

“I say.”

What I should have said was nothing. ‘Cause sometimes nothing is all anybody wants to hear.

“You listen to me, boy…”

Maw had a way of hurting a man that didn’t leave no other want but to hurt her too. Only you didn’t know how she did it so you never knew how to do it back. Not that you could. Not that you ever could. Without being some kind of blasphemous or damned. What with the preachers and the Lord saying what they do about the widows and the blind and her being both…

It’s a well worn cliche but it’s also fantastically fitting: “A picture’s worth a thousand words”.

It’s the kind of thing I would have loved to write an essay about in high school. But I’ve learned the not-so-easy way that given enough time we all evolve here and there and our words can and will come back to bite us if we don’t choose them with care.

So I’ll just caption this little photo, taken two years ago somewhere in the mountains of Tennessee, ‘American Gothic’. Because, if you think about it, and I know you will, that somehow seems fitting too.

Eunice and Aubrey had been sisters all their lives. That they felt the need to mention this as often as they did - or at all - was a matter of some curiosity for most of the people who knew them. Neither had ever married, though there was a time back in ‘72 when Aubrey thought she might like to. But her thinking stopped before she managed to meet a man and Eunice made sure it never started again.

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”

— Oscar Wilde

S and I took a train to Bath to check out Bladud’s pigs and buy jewellery. And to take a stack of photos of general touristy things for a travel article I’d forgotten about.

I kept the camera set to aperture priority and didn’t - couldn’t - take off my sunglasses. (My skin isn’t the only thing that’s overly sensitive to light.) My eyes don’t like the sun either. It’s why British weather and I have always got on so well.

Anyway, ended up with some great photos, taken no where near the golden hour, but looking like they might have been. For our personal albums. I didn’t manage as much Oxfam as S (although I can go to town at the bookstore on Marylebone) but I did help out with the icecream.

Three weeks ago I decided to train for a triathlon (the normal-folk kind…ironmans are for crazy people) even though running and I are mortal enemies and I have exercise induced asthma. But a friend of mine did one on a whim last year (Okay, maybe not so much a whim. He trained for three months and then flew to Miami to participate), and it inspired me.

I have completely realistic expectations (My times can only get better, right?). And my goal is this: Just Finish It.

But here’s the problem…I’m famished. All the time. And my 2-hours-a-day training sessions have just gone up an hour. I know all the how, what and when of the eating game but really, I’d rather have my eyelashes pulled out than spend 2 hours a day in the kitchen - because that’s how long it takes to prepare my nutrient-rich-six-mini-meals. Also, protein is expensive.

Any ideas for appropriate eats?

Carve out a time to write and then ignore the writer’s block. Show up to write, even if nothing comes right away. When your body shows up to the page at the same time and place every day, eventually your mind — and your muse — will do the same. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words, and only 500 words, every morning. Five hundred words is only about a page, but with those mere 500 words per day, Greene wrote and published over 30 books.