sent from: Mortimer Street, London, UK. destination: Croissy-sur-Seine, Paris, France

We started re-reading The Dragonbone Chair, a fantasy epic set in medieval world. In truth, I am re-reading for the sixth (seventh?) time, Maria for the first. I am enjoying sharing it with someone experiencing the twists and turns for the first time, and in reading it more closely finding whole areas of the text that I seemed to have skimmed over those first five times. What hasn’t changed is the way the story gripped me. When I read the third book – To Green Angel Tower for the first time it coincided with you giving me a recording of medieval music – ‘Bella Domna’ by Sinfonye (almost 20 years ago, can you believe it??), and one night I was reading the book with this music on in the background. I had one of those rare experiences where what I was reading and listening combined and it was as though the music came from the book, from the mouths of the characters themselves. Perhaps no accident all of the above took place in and around Canterbury 🙂

 I am noticing more and more recently that what ends up on the postcard feels at best like a first draft of what I really want to write. Repeated phrases abound, clumsy descriptions intrude, and I have to rush to a conclusion leaving much unsaid. I can’t decide if that’s part of the charm of the cards, that they’re essentially the first draft of something larger, or if I should sit down and write it out at least once before transcribing my thoughts onto the card itself.