with an on-going dicky tummy that leaves me feeling lacklustre (why oh why did i boast of my iron gut??) i don't have very many words at the moment. but i do have other peoples' words - those, namely, of Annie Dillard, whose book 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' has been The Find of my century. this one gos out to Andy, in response (sort of) to your letter. (and thanks for the truffles!)

'i think that the dying prayer at the last is not 'please' but 'thankyou', as a guest thanks his host at the door. falling from airplanes the people are crying thankyou, thankyou, all down the air; and the cold carriages draw up for them on the rocks. divinity is not playful. the universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. by a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. there is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. and then you walk fearlessly, eating what you must, growing what you can , like the monk on the road who knows precisely how vulnerable he is, who takes no comfort among death forgetting men, and who carries his vision of vastness and might around in his tunic like a live coal which neither burns nor warms him, but with which he will not part'.

we are in Varanasi, the City of Light, for two days and one night and it is raining. we witnessed a couple of cremations yesterday, the air foggy with a familiar tang of - what was it now? ah yes, the smell of barbeques on a warm summer's evening... Mum insists that one night is quite enough, but me, i know i will be back.