A neighbour asked me recently over a shared bonfire if I was bunking off from having lofty thoughts of the deep and meaningful kind. I think it was her way of saying she hadn’t seen much of me lately and assumed I’d been locked in my garret.
True, I had been busy editing one book and writing another, so fresh air and I had not been as close as health fetishists like to dictate. (Not that standing over a bonfire was the best way to do it. However, I’ve been told to get out more and burning a pile of twigs and leaves does that and satisfies the latent arsonist in me.)