First of all, may I thank all those who have added comments asking when I will return to blogging. I’m very humbled by your interest and pleased by the responses!

This is my first post for some months and please let me apologise for the lengthy absence! I have been ill before leaving on holiday, and have now been made redundant from my job. So, I’m job hunting but feel quite relaxed about the whole thing!

Anyway, I have decided that trying to post twice a week is proving quite difficult so I will attempt to alternate weekly between grammatical information and personal reflections. The entries will also be more wide ranging than purely writing orientated, but I think they have been becoming more so as time goes on anyway.  I hope this will prove more achievable, but please bear with me if they don’t arrive as expected!

OK. I guess the main thing I want to blog about now is our recent trip to the states. It was all I hoped it would be. I loved LA. Admittedly we did the tourist “thing” and had a tour around Hollywood, Sunset Strip, Beverley Hills etc. and though I was struck by the sadness of the quest for fame and riches, and the loneliness and heartache that this can bring, I found LA more welcoming and approachable than I expected. I hated Las Vegas, but I won’t go into that just yet! I am planning to write an article on the whole area of sadness and longing I found in two of the largest cities on the West Coast of America, but I’m not quite sure where I’m going to post it just yet. I’ll let you all know when I decide.

But, following on from my last real post, I have to say Tombstone was all I hoped it would be. Touristy beyond belief, the main street is closed to modern traffic but is just how you picture the Wild West from the movies. From the dirt streets, covered wooden sidewalks and horse-drawn stagecoaches, to the cowboy-filled saloons, prostitute dens (the bird-cage theatre still has ‘cribs’ that hang from the ceiling, now unused, where the ‘ladies’ would entertain their clients right there in the theatre) and 19th century businesses. It really would have made my dad’s heart sing to have seen it.

I think my wife found it rather tacky, but I loved it. I must have been influenced by my father more than I thought! Probably the highlight for me was the short walk around Boothill Graveyard. This is where the victims of the Gunfight at the OK Corral are buried, along with numerous other members of the town who died so many years ago. On payment of a small donation at the store that guards the entrance, you collect a pamphlet detailing all the occupants of the graves and how they died. When I gave my donation I told the lady at the counter of my father and his fascination with Tombstone. She then gave me a second pamphlet to take ‘for my father’ so he could go with me in spirit. And he did. It was hard to fight back the tears as I went round this otherwise grim reminder of desperate times, knowing that my father was with me, overjoyed to be at this ‘Mecca’ to a boyhood dream.

It’s hard to say why this meant so much to me. I think its partially a reminder of my dad, partially a reliving of my childhood where playing ‘cowboys and indians’ was a regular occurrence. But I think it’s more than that. It’s the living of a dream. A dream that wasn’t mine, but I was able to see come into fruition, vicariously. Although my father was able to travel to other countries before he died, he was never able to make it to America (I’m not even sure it ever occurred to him). All I do know is that a trip to Southern Arizona, and Tombstone, would have thrilled him beyond belief. I’m just glad he was able to experience it through me.

For anyone who has been following my posts, please accept my apologies for not posting anything for the last couple of months. What with illness, holidays and redundancy my life has been pretty manic! However, I will return soon and thanks for staying with me!