Reading tonight, in London, Broadway Bookstore, Hackney

 I seem to have been neglecting the blog--it's just that I was beginning to feel awfully repetitive. Which is ok, because when my life has a lot of routine I sleep better. In fact, I'm falling asleep over my book at 10 pm.

On the other hand, when I'm leading an exciting, varied life, as I have been for the past few days, I'm still wired at midnight and looking for purple pills.

I've been in the UK for a week. Came to London, spent three days with my daughter, partly in our favourite bakery/café, e5, which she says has just opened a shop in Kenya, partly flat-hunting around Broadway Market. Tonight I'm giving a reading in one the 3 (I think) bookstores there (in the space of 2 blocks) with Patrick Mackie, another CB editions writer. There's a review of Patrick's new book in this week's TLS. 

Then I was invited to Manchester to read at the Manchester Lit Festival, this past Monday, along with Jeffrey Wainwright and Matthew Welton, very different but equally superb poets and readers. And a terrific audience, too, as in Bolton, just outside Manchester last night. And today I'm back in London. It's a lovely 2-hour train ride between the two: rolling green fields, streams, sheep, cows, the odd horse, the odd town. My only complaint: hotels whose windows don't open.

The weather is mild, blue sky with clouds, some dark, some white--a change from California. Back to Paris tomorrow.