the last burnt sienna crayon

Today it doesn’t feel like Solitude. In the sense that Solitude should (and does) have a fullness and wonder to it, in the way I can/should/try to relate to the world and those around me. But today Things don’t seem abundant and the wonder of all that is around me, esacpes me.

Today is the other end of the spectrum. Today, and so early already, I just feel lonely. And a bit raw and sensitive. I’m ok, I’m fine, I’m not depressed, it’s no big deal. And I really don’t feel like grumbling, so don’t worry about me. But I could use some simple cheer. I’ve not been very good over the last few years with keeping track of things that just make me happy and of simple pleasures. I’ve never found many simple pick me ups, so I’m not sure how to lift my mood when it’s just grey. Not black, not immovable, just grey and muddy and heavy.

And I think today, I just need to shed some weight. I’m just never sure how.

I think I need a hug.

Just counted 11 empty syringes in my big yellow sharps bin.

It should have been more, but I have decided a few things:

1. I am not going to beat myself up for not doing it perfectly.
2. I am not going to inject anywhere near the left sciatic nerve.
3. I am (at least for now) going to give myself 2 nights off a week.
4. I will drink red wine and eat chocolate.

Just saying.

Realise that I am aware of how medicalised I have become in a such a short time frame, and also that I am aware of how boring that actually is. But being aware of my past history of bouncing between espousing and rejecting the medical as a part of me, makes me inclined to allow it, for now, for a time.

But only because I know I won’t be here for good. So if you’re willing to put up with and indulge me for a little bit while I find my bearings, then I may just be able to relax about the whole circus. And then will try to get back to not needing to talk about it so much, and perhaps even try to be interesting.

I find little that’s more enjoyable to fill an evening on my own with than putting on my pajamas, sitting with my cat, sipping a glass of red wine and watching the Andy Williams Show reruns on iPlayer.

Well, i suppose no news is good news. And as such, I have nothing to report.

Ok, so suddenly, almost in an instant I have more motivation than I’ve had since high school, and more energy than I’ve had since emigrating and have kept it up for over a week. FANtastic!

. . . but unfortunately, as I was like when I was an energetic, motivated high schooler, I seem to lack the focus and ability to usefully apply myself to accomplish anything effective. It’s a bit more like I’m wearing a caffeine patch than it is that I am a highly successful and healthy woman.

Oh well, one thing at a time, bird by bird, baby steps to the goal post, etc, whatever…

So I slowly, gently, gradually peak my head out from behind the the wide, old oak tree that I’ve been trying to hide behind (it is all there, if you look for it) and glance across the way to the little pool of water in the distance where the others are splashing and playing.

Maybe if I just creep over and dip my little toe in and see if it’s too cold and whether or not jumping right in would hurt too much or shock my system into a regression?

brr

Well, it’s a new year. And unlike my usual tendancy, I have not made much mark of it. In fact I have tried my hardest not to make too much mention of myself, not to be too visible. I figure that if in other years I have generally not tried to quell my natural extroversion, and other years have been stressful and difficult, then perhaps I should try something different this year and perhaps the year will go differently too.

Perhaps not. Everytime I try to wear this invisibility cloak, it ends up inadvertently slipping off. It’s very slippery. Or perhaps it just doesn’t fit too well.

On a practical note about this blog, you may have already noticed, that if you now approach this blog directly by entering it’s url, you will only see the two existing pages that have been posted (just not static on the front page until now) for many months now. However if you click on the link for an individual post, as listed on the wibsite.com homepage, you will be able to read it.

I know that my reasoning for doing things is usually only comprehensible to me, myself and I, so I won’t bother to try to explain.

You see, what Heather commented on that poem, although I know it was a bit tongue in cheek, is precisely what I’m talking about. A poem is, I feel, as much about the reader as it is about the writer, because all readings and meanings can be valid. I read it one way, she read it and, because she’s a different person with different things in her own head, she imediately thought of something different. (whether tongue in cheek or not, the image occured to her.)

I’ve been in so many discussions where people try to say “this is what this means” or “this is what the writer wanted you to think”, and I suppose just as all readers are different, all writers are different and I suppose some writers do want to “force your hand” and make you think and feel a specific thing by what they write. I suppose, if I’m honest, of course there’s a bit of that in what I write too. But the older I get, the more I try not to do that, and the more I try to just ‘let it be’ without forcing anyone to ‘get it’.

Because isn’t that what is ideal to be like with other people? Just ‘letting them be’ who they are, with all of their myriad meanings and interpretations, rather than forcing them to be and do and communicate just what we want from them?

Yes, it’s time to hibernate. Hibernate, eat, hide and drink mulled red wine. And besides, mulled wine doesn’t count towards your weekly allowed alcohol units. . . does it?

The fact that I have written so little as of late (both on and offline) is evidence to this fact (the hibernation, not the alcohol units). Long nights, evening skies at noon, cold rain and wet, rotting leaves. I find December difficult and Thanksgiving to Christmas a bit teary. And I guess also this year getting flu (probably Swine flu) which turned into chest infection (bronchitis/pneumonia – was actually a bit frightening at times. One gets attached to the act of breathing.), and not getting treated quickly enough hasn’t helped my usual “happy go lucky” general life attitude. (HEY! No heckling in the back there!)

I came down with it was the day after my vaccinations, so therefore I only assumed it was a side effect of the jabs and didn’t get checked until I really was in a bit of bother, which delayed my treatment for the infection.

I love antibiotics. No really, I do. I’ve been on them almost 10 times this year, and I always just feel safer once they’re in my system. I guess having a damaged immune system can be a bit scary at times, especially when you just can’t seem to fight something off. So an “immune system in a pill” is a great idea, I think (even taking into consideration my usual reaction against all things tablet shaped!).

My cat is ill, my mom is too far away, my husband is travelling, and my friends must all want to be hibernating as well.

I’m in a bit of a resentful, self pitying, “i love you, go away” slump just right now and I am sorry. I’m sorry both to you, Reader, and to those who must encounter me in the everyday, that I am a bit of a “little black rain cloud” at the moment. I am trying, I promise. I’ve just got my head down and mostly trying to direct as much of my tunnel vision and non existent energy as I can at the Flower Child, who has been such a star while mummy has been ill.

(aside: toddler tip for ill mums: create a small gentle set of “duvet games” with your little one. Hide and Seek works well. They will love hearing “where’s Flower gone?!” until you flip back the duvet and exclaim “There she is!”, and it allows you to be vaguely horizontal for as many minutes as you can squeeze out of it. Hide and seek with toy animals works well too. Also the game “the one who moves first looses” is a good one. Anyway, it worked for us.)

I can’t see how to shift this fatigue or cough or lassitude or blue mood for the foreseeable future, and Christmas has always been a tough time for me anyway (at least since coming here from there).

So please show some forbearance with me, and I’ll try to at least act vaguely positive. Maybe by next week, at least.

Oo. And I mustn’t forget to get some ice cream.

It’s days like today that make me feel like I perhaps should have never come here, and then I would never have to wrestle with the question of going back. Can one ever go back?

Days like today that are filled with memories, happy ones, important ones, trivial ones. It wasn’t always wonderful, but it always happened, and could be relied on. Days like today are filled with traditions, that perhaps mean nothing in and of themselves, but mean everything in the observation. Days like today used to be filled with people who are no more. People who weren’t always easy, but they were reliable, but now will never be again.

Memories and traditions and people. that I now feel that I have thrown away. That had been my intention, wasn’t it? Starting over can’t be done half heartedly.

And I didn’t do it half heartedly. It’s only that some days it just hurts a little more than others.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. Believe me, I am thankful.

The fact that I have remained so quiet recently is more evidence to the fact that there is too much to say, rather than too little. Don’t be fooled into thinking there’s nothing going on in this mental filing cabinet of mine. I am just trying to find the appropriate ways of saying them rather than to just say anything for the sake of it.

Also, so many blog entries are written mentally in my head at 3 in the morning while lying awake in bed and then refined at the keyboard later, after waking up. And as I have been too ill lately to allow any 3 am wakings (is that a good thing or a bad thing?), I have “pre-composed” less than usual.

So this morning I’m booked in for not just one flu jab, but two. The regular one plus the swine flu vaccination. And as of right now, I’m not sure I’m going to go through with the swine flu one today, as I’m on my own with the Flower Child all day today and tomorrow (husband is travelling with work), and from what I hear from all corners, my arm will be rendered pretty useless for awhile afterwords.

Three year olds and any immobility of the parent don’t go well together.

Oh yeah, plus my fear of injections doesn’t really help me make a dispassionate and practical decision.

I’ve been so eager to get vaccinated, particularly against swine flu, as everything I get knocks me for six, and could actually be a bit dangerous for me, with my ‘house of horrors immune system’ and all, and taking care of said three year old will be impossible if I get flu, which would immobilise me even more.

I’m very thankful really that I have the opportunity to get the vaccine, with my reaction to illness and all, but then there’s my reaction to drugs too. The question is weighing up do I risk delaying it (possibly a substantial time, knowing my surgery and their general approach to appointments) and therefore risking getting flu (there’s so much of it going round, as you may have heard) or going ahead and having it today, likely not just getting the sore unusable arm, but probably running my system down and being fatigued for the next three weeks until I can see my acupuncturist again? Remember, my body doesn’t like or react well to drugs, and I’ve been really run down lately anyway.

I’ll let you know what I do and what happens.

Somebody gave me something.

And they were always quite clear that I might not be able to keep it. They said that I could only have it if I was fully aware that the something might change or even be taken away completely. And I agreed. I knew it was more important to have the other things that went along with that ’something’ and to just enjoy the ’something’ for as long as I could. The whole is more important than the part, and I know that.

But that was before I had the ’something’, that part of the whole. That was before I fought to have it. That was before it became the most precious thing to me once it was mine, and now I don’t want to give it up. Now because I fight for it still and sometimes win, now because in my failure I don’t always value it as I should and when I don’t I regret it, now because I love seeing it more than anything else, now because I have a choice whether or not to put the effort into the fight to bring out my ‘thing’, I fear the day that I may not have it to bring out. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and I love it.

I might not have to give it up, all this worry could be for nothing. And ‘they’ could warn me, ‘they’ could let me know if I have to. ‘They’ could tell me that I never have to worry or think about such loss again, or ‘they’ could help me prepare for it, quite easily ‘they’ could open the future, but ‘they’ won’t allow me to. ‘They’ tell me that it’s wrong, that I should just enjoy my ’something’ for as long as I can and then deal with it if it happens. ‘They’ tell me it’s the principle. The future was never mine, nor is it any of ours, to know. Even if we could.

But I find myself like a dragon guarding my treasure and lashing out at anyone who threatens to take it away prematurely, even for a moment. I want to keep my ’something’ and there is nothing I can do about it if I can’t. And I agreed to this, this contingency. I always said that it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. But I never knew.

I never knew what a wonderful, valuable, precious, intoxicating ‘thing’ a smile could be. Someone gave me a smile, only for a time, maybe, and it’s not the only thing that counts, and the value should be on the whole treasure, not just the gold trinket. I know it’s selfish to want to keep it when it might only have been a loan. But the truth is, I don’t know how to let it go. I didn’t expect to be so impractical.

If I had my life to live over again, I wish:

• I had flown home for Grandma’s funeral
• I had flown home before the family house was sold
• I had flown home more often
• I had never tried to do many things
• I had never tried and failed to do many things
• I hadn’t allowed myself to be manipulated so frequently
• I hadn’t been so naive whilst thinking that I wasn’t
• I had tried more illegal drugs and steered right clear of the legal ones
• I had never left the job at the Uni, no matter how ill I was going to get
• I hadn’t been so over confident that I would get another one
• I had been more patient
• I had shown more forbearance
• I had had more fortitude
• [edit]
• I had waited a bit longer to buy property
• I had gone to more gigs and fewer protests/lobbies
• I hadn’t said some things and that I had said some other things
• I hadn’t kept some friends and that I had kept others better
• I hadn’t kept so much
• I hadn’t lost so much
• I hadn’t forgotten so much
• I had had more fun
• I hadn’t been so serious
• I had loved better
• I had valued better
• I had studied better
• I had managed money better
• I had travelled more
• I had practiced my more music
• I had worried less
• I had drunk less
• I had argued less
• I were less ambitious
• I were more content with not getting what I want
• I were more thoughtful
• I were more grateful
• I were more graceful
• I had been more gracious
• I had broken more learned behaviours
• I hadn’t changed
• I had changed
• I hadn’t grown so cynical
• I had read more books
• I had been a better Christian
• I had been a better mother
• I had been a better wife
• I had been a better friend
• I hadn’t thrown so many pearls to so many pigs

( <– cont.)
. . . 30. surprised and touched. thank you everyone.

Find out more about National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week and the 5-day free virtual conference with 20 speakers Sept 14-18, 2009 at www.invisibleillness.com

1. The illness I live with is:

Multiple Sclerosis

2. I was diagnosed with it in the year:

1996

3. But I had symptoms since:

1995

4. The biggest adjustments I’ve had to make is:

the fatigue, the loss of complete independence. the necessity of energy conservation.

5. Most people assume:

that I am “well” in between relapses

6. The hardest part about mornings are:

the opening my eyes bit, never feeling like i woke up.

7. My favorite medical TV show is:

i hate them all

8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is:

the car

9. The hardest part about nights are:

insomnia

10. Each day I take __ pills; vitamins:

a largely varriable amount of

11. Regarding alternative treatments I:

judge my practitioner very carefully, currently i have an acupuncturist (since 02) and a psychotherapist (since 07) but have recently ‘dumped’ several others.

12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose:

visible, hands down!

13. Regarding working and career:

have had to give up the prospect, but have enough denial left to occasionally entertain the thought of what to try next, usually end up discouraged, then give up.

14. People would be surprised to know:

well if i haven’t tried to tell you yet, then i’m probably not going to. but you’d probably be surprised how fatigue is really nothing like being tired.

15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been:

that once something is gone it’s gone. it’s not coming back. and you don’t realise that it’s going until after it has happened.

16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was:

on the contrary, i always thought I would do a lot more than I have.

17. The commercials about my illness:

make me feel angry, objectified, pitied and patronised.

18. Something I really miss doing since I was diagnosed is:

hiking, dancing

19. It was really hard to have to give up:

hiking, working, travelling, dancing, stage things… didn’t we already have this question?

20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is:

well, i took up cross stitch once, but then i lost too much eyesight to do it anymore (besides getting bored). does hammered dulcimer count as a hobby?

21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would:

hike into the Grand Canyon

22. My illness has taught me:

things I’d rather not know.

23. One thing people say that gets under my skin is:

“But you’re so young!” oh wait, no they don’t say that one anymore, cause I’m not. So how bout, “But you look so normal, I would have never known!”

24. But I love it when people:

empathise rather than pity.

25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is:

The Letter to the Church in Philadelphia Rev 3: 7-13 (personal reasons)

26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them:

don’t waste your life waiting/looking for ‘the cure’. don’t fight your body/illness, you’ll only be fighting yourself. try to work with and accept it.

27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is:

how many people have huge misconceptions.

28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was:

bring me banoffee pie in hospital and then washed my very long hair in the sink for me when I couldn’t move and the hospital nurses hadn’t done it for me for two weeks. and also bossing the ward sister around when I had been left alone in my own sick because they were too busy to bother with me. (thanks E, I’ll never forget it.)

29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because:

I have an Invisible illness

30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel:

I’ll come back to that question if I ever find out that somebody has actually read it.

Home.

Funny how being away for only a few days can disrupt one’s centre of gravity, make one lose foothold and unshakable stability.

I am still well and still feel secure in that, and thank you so much for all of the comments. (I often think that I only write for the comments). However, just right now, I need to rebalance, re-root myself now that I’m home.

It just might take a few days.

After all, I did better this time than I would have done not long ago.

Attended a portfolio day to discuss my work with ‘a professional’ on Saturday. Why is it that I left disappointed that she only had good things to say about what I had produced? (I know I’m not ‘there‘ yet, so I guess I was hoping she could tell me all of those things I had left to do, enough critisism to give me something to work on.) Why were her suggestions to go ahead and do the future things that I really want to do and try for the thing I want to try for and that she thought that I was good enough to do them so disheartening? (I want what she suggested so badly, but know it’s not possible.) Why was it that when I used to be such a believer in grasping the impossible, that when I used to be so willing to try anything that I could imagine because what have I got to lose anyway, go anywhere, have faith that something will work out, never give up, why was it that when she only half jokingly suggested that I write to Annie Liebowitz and ask if I could go on several weeks work experience with her, just for the hell of it, that this once upon a time dreamer, crazy risk taker wanted to cough and say “Shyeah, RIGHT!” Are you mental?”

It has been a long 15 years. And I’ve gone a lot of places I didn’t want to go because of both circumstance and of cruel fate and sometimes because of the very risks that I took, and I never in all that time stopped trying.

But I’m tired.

There’s another piece of writing I need to work on for a bit, and as the flower child’s morning group breaks for the summer on Wednesday, and I can’t seem to get my wordpress template working quite right, I am intending to take a bit of a little break from blogging. . . well, that’s the intention anyway. We’ll see if it happens.

“One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion. ” – Simone De Beauvoir

I have realised recently that I might start to like myself better, if I started to like other people better.

I took a lot of photographs when I was back there. Snaps, mainly. And most of them from a moving car or plane window. But none of them were of places that really meant something to me. Except for a few snaps of the house I grew up in and called my home for 20 years, speeding past from a car window so as not to stand on dodgy ground longer than needed. And that is so different now anyway, as if it had been built again. All the trees are gone, the two towering blue spruce where the blue jay made it’s nest each year, my mother’s flower beds and the peonies– all gone. Even the windows and siding are different colors. . . that house wasn’t mine. It was a facinating specimen to photograph, but it wasn’t saving a memory. That house was never my home. Those snaps were of nothing sacred.

The sacred places would have made better proper photographs. But were perhaps too risky to attempt. I dared not.

My camera has lain dormant for several months now, so recently I have bartered in the old style currency of words. I wonder why. Even the simple swan photo I posted the other day was from my archives. In part I know why, and am confident of my photos returning someday soon, but right now, even though words are a somewhat riskier endeavour, in a way, they fill a space that the images left, and at least prevent a complete block.

And besides, there’s really nothing at stake anymore anyway.

Today I discovered words again. Last night I wrote them, today I listened to them. I now have a working and useful screen text reader installed on my computer and it is like a whole new world has been opened up to me! Yet now that I am able to once again read the words of others, I don’t, just right now, seem to be able to write them myself. Last night I wrote that poem a friend had assigned me awhile ago. After not being able to even approach writing poetry for so many years, perhaps I used up all of my words in doing so.

Instead, today, all I can do is offer an image. Images are the same thing as words anyway, they just sound different.

… I’ve added a new flickr account RSS feed to the right, though I had been hoping it might upload at least thumbnails rather than just text. And if anyone knows why my photo frame (at the top of the blog) won’t let me upload and customise anymore, or what I can do to fix it, just let me know. Ta.

Have been determined to discover some new music lately. Not just newly released, but new to me.

About a year ago, husband and I stumbled into some music, so to speak. We have a LOT now, not that we were really hurting for music before, but this is a LOT of stuff and a LOT of it is good and a lot of it is classic. (that’s not to say that there isn’t bad stuff too) It has made me aware of how much that I’ve only exchanged passing glances with and really needed to explore a bit deeper. So at the end of May, I had a major photography deadline and wanted to shut myself away in my room with no one and nothing else but a bunch of musicians, a laptop, a printer and a slew of jpegs.

So I’ve been telling myself that I’d write out some of my discoveries. These are not all the albums that I tried out and not the best or fullest of descriptions (I’ve never been good at writing reviews), but just thought I’d get it down, at least in part, before I forget.

I’ve just decided that I could keep writing and writing about this tonight, but really don’t have time, so I could always come back to it later. But here is some of my musical discovery of late, at least in part, and all of it is influenced by the fact that I was looking for something I could work to. So my assessments might be very different, when listening at rest.

Albums discovered that I could listen to as a whole over and over again. (Couldn’t work to these, they were too good. kept listening to the lyrics):
1972 – Neil Young – Harvest
1977 – Peter Gabriel –self titled (Car-album cover)
(What can I say about these two albums?! I think my loss for words says enough.)
1999 – Divine Comedy – A Secret History (an album where everybody probably knows a good proportion of it, but hasn’t listened to the whole thing. So I did listen to the whole thing. And really enjoyed it. Lyrically clever, always liked his voice and singing style, all around pretty fun.)
2007 – Beirut – The Flying Club Cup (This is my ultimate musical discovery of the year! Suggested listening by a friend, I read the sleeve notes first and it immediately intrigued me and it reminded me of Rilke’s prose [a favourite], though Rilke wasn’t any actual influence on the album. The album was actually inspired by an old photograph of hot air ballooners found in France. The photos in the album are lovely. The music was intriguing, different, powerful, emotional, descriptive and just plain good. Lyrically the songs made for good poetry with or without music and Zach Condon’s voice could melt marble! The sound of Eastern European folk brass along with French accordion was actually beautiful. The lyrical imagery was as well.)
1984 – The Smiths – Hatful of Hollow (but anything Smiths will do. These, actually, were pretty good work albums too, really. They’re just good albums.)

Album discovered that I could listen to as a whole, but once was enough for one day:
1999 – Penguin Café Orchestra – When In Rome (enjoyable. I really liked this, like the first time I heard it, but didn’t want to stick it on ‘repeat’.)

Tried, but I’ll pass:
Camper Van Beethovin (might try again, might not)
California Guitar Trio (kind of got bored)
1976 – Phillip Glass – Einstein on the Beach
1982 – Phillip Glass – Koyaanisqatsi
(These two upset my cat. I wasn’t far behind.)

Albums I discovered that were good, but I couldn’t listen to for more than a few tracks at a time:
1975 – Patti Smith – Horses (great album, great performer/artist, but started to twitch with nervous energy after about 4 tracks. I think perhaps this is one to listen more to the individual tracks than as a whole. for one’s own sanity’s sake.)
1973 – Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon (again, great album, and there are individual songs I’ve always liked, but as a whole, and with an impending deadline looming, I opted for something a little less unstable, more calming and encouraging. It was kind of like when my roommate and I lay on the floor in a darkened room in university and listened to the Beatles’ Number 9 (on Revolution 9) and totally tripped out, stone cold sober. Anyway, I will give Dark Side of the Moon another listen as a whole album, but not when I have anything pressing or nerve wracking, I think.)
1983 – Police – Synchronicity (Actually, I’ve always really liked this album, but again was getting a bit anxious. Some tracks better than others.)

Album I just didn’t like:
1997 – Radiohead – Ok Computer (don’t know whether I think it’s good or not (I can admit to something being ‘good’ even if I don’t like it), I couldn’t get past the first track!)

I found these Good albums to work to:
2006 – Cat Power – The Greatest (I think I actually enjoyed her, but would need a few more listens before assessing whether or not she’s actually good.)
2008 – Ting Tings – We Started Nothing (ok, this was a bit of a surprise to me. I didn’t expect to be ok with or cope with it, but the sheer energy was conducive to a deadline, which is why I think I went for it in the end. I don’t think I necessarily think it’s good, or that I would go out of my way to listen to it again, but it was ok and it would be good for house cleaning to. House cleaning needs something with energy.)
1959 – Ray Charles – The Genius of Ray Charles (was surprised that it was all instrumental And just simply, he was a genius.)
1988 – The Clash – The Story of the Clash (2 CDs) (couldn’t listen to it everyday, but good stuff.)
Talking Heads – all of it (I love Talking Heads, have for a long time. discovered them late on, really, in ‘94. I don’t know why, there’s just something cathartic about David Byrne’s style that I can relate to. . . no, don’t think too hard about that!)

Things I used to listen to a lot, but on revisiting, didn’t really want to revisit. Not bad stuff, just for then, not for now. At least, for now, now.
Waterboys –made me sad and nostalgic
Smashing Pumpkins – could take it or leave it this time
Indigo Girls – who wants to be 17 again?
Tori Amos – who wants to appropriate all that angst? (also, see above comment)
Fiona Apple – didn’t realise she was so angst ridden too.
Seal – this one actually fared best of this section for listenability. He’s pretty good. Actaully, yeah, I still liked this one.

Would, of course, as always, be interested to hear what you think.