So I’m back home in the damp greenness that is Devon, recovering from a full-on few days in London. There’ve been (at least) two changes in my response to the city since I moved to the country. One is that I’m in love with London again, the way I used to be, before the soul-destroying, tedium-spiked-with-aggro of the daily commute wore that early infatuation out of me. This is the reaction I’d hoped for, and to tell the truth expected; it was one of the reasons I moved out in the first place, to reclaim the pleasure of going in. Another is the rather more startling realisation that three or four fully scheduled big-city days and nights are exhausting. I didn’t notice when my life was like that week in, week out. I only knew that I was bloody tired. A lot.

As I am now, though the long drive in endless rain probably has as much to do with that as five days of insufficient sleep. No complaints about the big city itself, full once again of magic and mystery and the boundless energy of eight million lives. It welcomed me back, gave me a proper workout and sent me home with lots of book-related news, which I promise to share just as soon as … zzz.