I forgot my blog...

Where was I? I've been in Cambridge on the last module of the course that will be my last bit of formal education. (Why do I have the feeling I'll have to eat those words? No, NO, I'm never doing another of these....) Actually, it wasn't too bad. Our group project came together like a dream. It was truly amazing. I HAD spent one whole weekend and about four evenings doing a splendid editing job - which no-one thanked me for (I'll take that as a sign that I did it so well no-one noticed!) - but even so, we really got our act together, finished the paper and handed it in. So now I'm on the home run, just a couple of thousand words to write and most of them are already on the page....

And somewhere in the middle of all this I've rediscovered a subject that's interested me on and off all my life - about a military figure, funnily enough, though the military bit doesn't grab my attention much - and I've been taken over by this incredible urge to research every last corner of his life and write a book on it by 2009. The story that's unfolding is quite breathtaking. And the astonishing thing is that it comes at me like scenes out of a film. I'm someone who watches very little TV - except for the news - and only occasionally goes to the cinema.

So you're right, I've been off on a trip, enjoying myself - surfing the internet an ordering dusty old books that are now carefully stashed away on the right-hand side of my desk, still cushioned in bubble wrapping and with the cardboard box resealed around them. I keep taking them out and reading a bit more, then putting them back. These two volumes date from 1822. At Cambridge, I spent a day in the library, with my nose in even dustier books containing copies of handwritten letters from 1790 onwards from the brother of my 'hero'. Those letters alone would make a book but I found out from google that somebody's already written that one.

All very intriguing, even a little scary to see how quickly you can be taken over by a story that's ten times bigger than yourself. Who would have thought that this is what would emerge from all that sweating over the university work? Wish me luck. When things get too big, I have a tendency to drop them. But, having said that, this one just keeps coming back and presenting itself again.

Now you know why I forgot - really forgot - about dear ol' Picc. Think it's time to stick the 'P' back and make it feel like home again.