January 2022: A is for Australia, Angst and Ardern, B is for Beasties and Books, C is for Christmas and Catlets, D is for Diabetes ....

It is a month today since I arrived back home from my Ardern-imposed exile in Australia...

The Angst is fading ... I feel it will never wholly disappear during what remains of my life ... but Gerolstein is working its soothing magic ... the setting, the folk, the critturs ..

Of course, the favourite critturs are Sherbertte's five incestuous (?) kittens ... They have made themselves throughly at home, bouncing across the lawns, galumphing down the gladdies, digging up the flower pots, escalading the fences ... and even making a cats cradle of the top of what is supposed to be their peacock-proof enclave..

Their juvenile energy is amazing ..

Books. Well, brother John and I have had a prolific writing year ...

which has really come to a peak at the dawn of 2022 ... This week, John carried off the Corsham StoryTown Festival Poetry Prize for his poem Fingers Farooqi paints a story on the town wall during the night ...

A new and revised edition of my The Musical, a Concise History, with a 21st century chapter by my friend, Jamie Findlay has hit the bookstores...

And, any moment now, it will be followed by our first book together (after twenty-odd each, individually) at the ages of 76 and 72!

For some years now, we have been translating poetry from the French, at first mainly for John's volumes of international poetry, The Song Atlas and 52 Euros ... which led to, which led to, which led to .. We had a joyous time with the atmospheric, friendly works of Verhaeren, delved into everything from Yourcenar to Maeterlinck .. and our version of Baudelaire's The Cat was even named Poem of the Week by the Guardian newspaper. We were, at one stage, asked to turn our talents to the poetic (?) works of Genet. I started. Reams and reams of pretentious poppycock ... we both cried 'hold, enough' simultaneously, and dived, instead, with view-hallooo! into the wonderfully multi-coloured work of silly old Petrus. If you don't know about him, you'll enjoy discovering him. A wannabe, a dying-to-shock-and-stir guy, who actually had -- hidden among the slagheaps of posing and pretension -- some nuggets of gold to deliver ....

Yes, the new year has begun 'en trombe' ... but, alas, one less cheerful left-over from 2021. It seems that, doubtless thanks to my experiences of last year, I have fallen prey to senile diabetes. So another battle begins ...

And meanwhile the Family Books meuble is beginning to bulge at the edges ... We have over overflowed into the side-shelves! There is just a wee spot for Petrus .. I suppose I shall have to catalogue it one day ...

Time for a little stroll in the gardens before cocktail time ...