A couple of months ago my MS took a swing at the optic nerve in my left eye, blinding it. This wouldn't normally be disastrous except my right eye has always been very weak. I haven't been able to read since except by a magnifying 300 per cent on the monitor. I have regained a small amount of sight in my left eye, but all that's done is given me doubled vision.

Sorry if I've been a bit quiet of late, but writing's been on the backburner for the last few months. I'm still doing bits and pieces occasionally, though not to any great intensity.

I know I've been a tad quiet of late, but I've been hard at writing the next part of OHOP... since I've abandoned daily parts I decided to make each new part an entire day in Stevie's life... unfortunately she packs a lot in to her days - I'm 3000 words in and it's not even tea time!

I've just come back from a long weekend in my home village, and my best intentions of writing the next few parts of OHOP went by the board very early on. I'm not sure why I couldn't write in my mother's house - a little guilt perhaps for the mother character in the serial, or possibly just another case of me compartmentalising my life... I write in Hampshire, I don't in Wales.

When I first came to BCTS you may remember I was rather demoralised by the place where I had been posting my stuff before. Although all my new work is primarily posted here, I still post some in 'the other place' for a few readers who like my stuff, and haven't wandered over here.

Has anyone else been following the spat between Times food critic Giles Coren and the paper's subeditors? Highly entertaining stuff, tho not for the faint hearted, as Mr Coren's opinion are rather pithy.

A good summation from the Guardian here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/25/pressandpublishi...

As I've been a bit preoccupied with other regions lately I thought I'd treat my brain for a change. My old Chambers Thesaurus has begun shedding leaves at an alarming rate, so I thought I'd buy a replacement (as opposed to wandering down to the warehouse and thieving another).

There'll not be an episode of OHOP this evening, as I'm a tad rough. There was a certain room in the flat I hadn't visited since Thursday (first time experience for me), and my GP provided a very thorough remedy... I'm not feeling very creative right now :)

So there I was, no longer a slave to the tobacco corporations, free from the addiction that dictated much of my day.