Gods, I'd forgotten how my office work area was set up so that I fitted it, or it fitted me. Sat at the desk, which is held in place with the aid of old boxes of folders containing my undergrad work, with the open window letting in the evening birdsong and the gutteral roar of motorbikes opening up to climb the hill. On the horizon is a stand of trees which my eye automatically sees as a horseman but it's been six months since I sat here and the rider is less obvious than he used to be.

I just got a flatscreen monitor for my desktop. Since I got the laptop before midwinter I have been using it, sitting at my sewing desk in the main room of the house, since I simply couldn't bear my old VDU any longer. I have a ridiculously good large flatscreen at the office, because I spend 8 hours a day in front of it. And the laptop is decent because, well, laptop. The VDU had become so dark it was like viewing the digital world through an uncleaned aquarium. But now I'm back at the desk where I wrote the first two novels (and, oh dear gods, that is the first time I've thought of them as "the first two" instead of "the two" suggesting I'm thinking about doing another), short fiction etc etc. And it feels very like sliding back into my own skin. This is where I write.

The keyboard fits my fingers perfectly, with the wrist guard worn smooth from the years of use. The piece of malachite is still by the arrow keys. Sébastian has already wandered up and tried to swing on my mouse arm, as he is prone to do, and is now stretched out behind my chair thus risking being run over as I wheel backwards. In front of me are a photo of G taken when we were at a free festival in Bristol, an old Tank Girl poster, a framed photo of Amber Benson from her film Chance, a random assortment of photos, a bullfighting poster with FITZ KREINER blocked onto it bought in Barcelona. Whenever I look up I see a bodhisattva and a Chinese love charm. Just to my right sits shelves, bending under the weight of the reference books, built from bricks and some long planks of MDF I rescued from a skip. A tiny lean and a dozen Who reference books are literally at my fingertips. There's a gentle breeze from the open window. This is where I belong.

All of which is good, because the Contractually Signed Thing is still not written and is due on Monday. Obviously I intend to fritter a few hours upgrading programs and cleaning up the desktop PC because I've missed it and I'll have to tidy the room now instead of leaving it a bit random but I feel like I've returned to something.

Also, I need to go and get the optical wheel mouse which I've got hooked up to the laptop because trying to use a 2button ball mouse is freaking me. My middle finger keeps trying to scroll on a wheel that isn't there...