It’s been a thoroughly balanced weekend, in every sense of the word.

I hung around in Galleywood most of the day yesterday, waiting for Mum and Andrew to come back from holiday, looking tanned and full of stories of good food and relaxing times spend sitting with the sparrows around the pool.

It feels like much more than a year since Paul and I were at the same villa ourselves, so perhaps my deep-rooted belief that each year goes by much faster than the one before it isn’t so right after all.

I spent most of my waiting time working on the French. I’m having terrible trouble with the conditional tense at the moment, and in trying to fix it in my mind it’s throwing out all that I remember about plain old past imperfect. Perhaps I need to take a little break from it for a while.

Anyhow, they were back around five, so we had tea and ate the biscuits I’d bought, and then I motored back home in time to walk to the pub for dinner with Trevor and Jon. A very sinful dolcelatte and pear pie in herby pastry. Showery Lowrie would have had a fit if he’d seen how many calories there must have been in each mouthful, but it was fantastic, and well worth the extra 2.54cms-es it’ll put on the waistline.

Back to ours afterwards, for fierce pear liqueurs.

So it was a pleasant surprise, then, when I was up at a decent hour this morning. The sun was up, so considering most of the day was pretty foul I’d guess it must have been some time around nine, although I wouldn’t lay money on it.

Regardless of the weather, though, I’ve spent the time making good progress on the book. Last week did me the world of good. Stepping away from all the stuff that surrounds me here, it cleared my mind, and suddenly everything became very clear. I know where the story wasn’t working, and what I needed to do to work it through, and so today I sat down and started working through it from the first sentence of chapter one.

I think - think - I even know the bits I need to trim to get it down from the 250,000 word predicted total length. That, I think, is probably about as important as getting the rest of it written.

1. Bluewater
   The weather has been foul all day. It was pouring before I woke up. I could hear it on the window before I'd even emerged...
   
   
2. End of the year
   So. The last day of 2001, and I'm doing the same with life as I was at the end of 2000. That's not necessarily a...
   
   
3. Wings
   We've all been working double-speed today, thanks to a generous crate of Red Bull that arrived in the post this morning. Everyone who saw it...