Well, I'm back

Had a perfectly marvellous time. The Icelandic landscape is both sublimely alien and homely; Finland is earthy and delightfully liveable—I loved the forest berries and the herring and the mushrooms and the Moomin gummies and the smart little trams, which seem to have their windows washed twice a day. Worldcon was splendid, except that the panels were all so madly popular that there were queues down the halls and round the corners, and I could only get into about half the events that I wanted to see. My own panels and reading all went really well, thank heavens.

Afterward, I stayed with my dear friends in Norfolk in their 17th-century sailmakers' barn. The conversations and cookery were magnificent, and we sailed about looking at East Anglian angel roofs and strange manor houses. Then I caught up with other dear friends in Cambridge, and ended peacefully with a third set in Bucks, where mostly we dozed and read and talked and read, and ambled through the Hell-Fire caves, which are ludicrously Gothick.

And I saw a red squirrel in Helsinki!