TEEPPEES

My teeppee has a central post. I can haul myself out of bed and stand upright whilst pulling on my trousers. Not for me the bum-shuffling necessary in the sort of tent that the teenager considers cool. You know? Dragging you pants on (or off) while seated on a cold damp groundsheet?

THE WEERMACHT HAS LANDED

I camped at the Horizons Unlimited Spring meet at Ripley, Derbyshire.
Or had the Weermacht landed? A meadow of gleaming BMWs!!!
Grant and Susan Johnson founded Horizons Unlimited on the Web as a biker community for travelers. The Spring meet ran for four days with a dozen or more bikers giving talks on their travels. The fun is in meeting people in the flesh whom you have communicated with over the years. I heard from bikers recently in Tierra del Fuego that the sainted Graciela (she who rescued me after my accident) has opened a Bar and reopened the Hotel Argentino. Travelers passing thru Rio Grande please stop by with messages from me of adoration. Graciela will show you my wheelchair...

TEENAGE SUPREMACY

THE TEENAGER DOING HIS THING

I have been camping at a biker meet and will do so at the BIG CHILL festival.
My life is a rearguard action against teenager supremacy.
Anti-cool is my only weapon - thus I bought a silver teeppee and two zebra-striped camp chairs that no teenager would be seen dead in - particularly not a teenage supreme sports suicide kid camping out at a supreme sports championship (at which all gear gets trashed). So my gear is safe. As is my pink pen...

EMILY

Anna has a new cousin - and I have a second granddaughter, Emily, daughter of Sarah and my eldest son, Antony.
Wow! Woopee! Cheers!

GRANDDAUGHTERS

I haven't written in a while. My head has been too full of anxieties personal to my family: tears shed for a new-born granddaughter in intensive care, pain for the parents, helplessness in the face of their fears, sense of utter failure in not possessing a magic wand - such is fatherhood.
Tiny Anna is home now. She is utterly beautiful, gurgles softly, joyously, and is gaining weight.
And I ask myself why am I so emotionally pathetic when my son and his wife are so strong...