Isle of Lismore, outside in the sun after an only slightly foolhardy pre-breakfast dip in Loch Linnhe
Another busy week, one way or another. On Friday I was at Edinburgh University to discuss research ideas, although Darryl Martin and I spent far more time enthusing about Shirley Collins, and the 12-string Rickenbacker he had in his office.

Since then I'd expected to be relaxing here on Lismore, but on Monday I was halfway to the shop when the rim of my bike's back wheel collapsed and I stood in a passing place watching it gradually bend itself away from the tyre before the inevitable 'BOOM' of the inner tube exploding echoed across the hills, startling lambs and sheep. I walked back, with no shopping.

 

The following day I took the boat over to the mainland with the wheel to see if the bike hire people had a spare the same size (they didn't), and made it back to the island just in time to get the news that our house had been broken into while we were away. So I  was on the boat again, and drove off to Glasgow, leaving the rest of the family behind to get on with being on holiday.

I made it back in 24 hours exactly, as my parents had already alerted the police and let the glaziers in, so I had just had to tidy up the considerable mess and install some alarms. The lesson is: if you're going to get burgled, get done over by incompetent idiots - probably just kids trying to liven up their school holiday in our case.  They didn't steal much, and thankfully they didn't damage much either. As the fingerprints guy said to me: "In Glasgow, you're never more than half a mile from a toerag."

Anyway ... I've brought lots to read with me, including Nick Mason's laugh-out-loud-funny account of life in Pink Floyd, and some Lewis Carroll as a preparation for reading Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland, which is brilliantly entertaining once you've got over the shock of there being several graphic styles colliding on nearly every page. I also brought one of Mr Talbot's contributions to Fables, and read this, this and this. 

Some space away from everything is always good for thinking with clarity of purpose, and perspective. The sound of the eider ducks is pretty good too.