Have spent most of the day working on Hallsfoot's Battle and am now at the grand total of 21,500 words. Or thereabouts. I've just got to the telling of the First Gathandrian Legend, which is basically Gathandria's creation story. So that's proving challenging to make up as I go along, for sure. Fun too. Annyeke and I are hoping this will be the first stage in helping Simon to come to terms with who he is and what he can do with the mind-cane but, really, it's anyone's guess just now.

I was also really pleased to see that my poem, The Death of Marat, is included in Issue 18 of the Equinox poetry journal. And I'm among some great company too. I think it's the best poetry magazine I've had the pleasure of reading for a long, long time. Bloody hell, I might even subscribe, if I can find the energy for it. I particularly enjoyed offerings from Nigel Humphreys, Navkirat Sodhi, Andrew Geary and Barbara Daniels. Thought I'd best name-drop in advance, just in case they become hugely and justifiably famous later, you know ...

And the postal service is becoming stranger - I found Mother's postcard in the mud behind the recycling bins, so I had to scramble around in the dirt in order to retrieve it. It was lucky I glimpsed it at all. Anyway, she's having fun in Cork. As you do. Though she was sorry to have missed Jersey - the seas were too rough. I would have thought she'd have been able to get there with her broomstick as usual, mind you. Perhaps she left it at home?

In terms of reading, I've given up in bored despair with the pretentious and poorly written No Country for Old Men. Shame on you, Cormac McCarthy! Have you not heard of speech marks? Dull claptrap, to my mind. I hope the film was better, for those of you who've seen it. The strapline for this book tells me: There are no clean getaways. Well, actually, yes there are: just remove the bookmark and start something else. That'll do it.

Meanwhile, at home.com, Lord H has returned from hunting the buffalo and leapt straight into fixing our very droopy telephone wire. And I hadn't even realised it was something we could fix - seeing as we're so high up here in the shires. Lord H's response when I asked how he'd done it: I have very long arms, you know. Hmm, I suspect it was rather a matter of pulling at the end and using a carefully positioned couple of nails and a hammer. Still, I could be wrong. It has been known.

Tonight, I'm planning an evening of sudokus and TV. I am strangely involved with "Lab Rats" now. Hell, I'll miss them when it's finished.

Today's nice things:

1. Writing Hallsfoot
2. A published poem
3. Abandoning a bad book
4. TV.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website