Nowhere, Middle Of

I am sitting on a very squashy sofa in a large old building a tiny hamlet in the borders, looking out of leaded windows at a white sky and listening to a cacophony of sparrows. We made our escape yesterday, and despite my having a horrible headache all the way up the road, we got here in good time with our rain gear (do reindeers wear rain gear?), board games for bored days, sketchbooks (one each), books (I've almost finished mine) and tins of tomatoes. I love driving and it was great to be on the one road with no traffic lights, although big motorway traffic (gigantic commercial vehicles that pull out into your lane at the last minute when you have nowhere to go) appears to have colonised the A1 for some reason.

Here, it's huge, quiet, peaceful and satisfyingly lost off. Kenji and Till are coming later, and Offsprog Two is coming on Sunday. There is room for us all and even a swinging cat, if we were interested in such activities.

I couldn't pack my guitar and I was reluctant to leave it, but I think I need a break from that too. I just need a break from everything to do with normal 'me'.

I had to stop myself this morning, just get up and get on with the day. I was making a list of all the terrible things that the Conservatives have done, do and will do. I won't call them Tories- that's them pretending that there has been some sort of break from their awful policies, which have basically carried on for far too long. I'm not going to list them here because I left them upstairs and with any luck when I go back up to get dressed the list will have dissolved and drifted out of the upstairs window, which is what I wish would happen to the Conservatives in all honesty.

So this is a conservative free sofa, with the anticipation of a cup of proper coffee in a minute or so.