The Last Days of Bended Knee

It's over. The Days of Bended Knee. This is what I am calling telemark or free-heel skiing which is how I spend my winters to avoid depression, writer's butt and a bad neck and shoulders. I think physical activity is essential to writing. Not only for the obvious aesthetic reasons when one must present a book in a stylish London independent bookshop (are you sure about the silver heels Averil? What if it's cold?) but for strength of mind and character. If I am curled up with my laptop for five damp foggy months where I can barely see the cherry tree at the bottom of the yard, I become a pretty toxic person. I need movement (read beer-stops, some night-time dancing and man-hunting into that) and good mates talking about everything under the sun other that writing. Sometimes I ban myself from talking about The Novel because I don't want to sound like that whacky Australian who also thinks she can ski. Not everybody reads, not everybody will even half-like this book, but I was very very chuffed in the local bar trying to explain my storyline to a bunch of dishevelled male ski mates at the end of a sunny slushy day. Miles away from my target market, but wanting to know if there were any ski instructors or mountain lust. Well, there IS a chapter set in my beloved Dolomites, and there IS a sculptor (my mate M has the most amazingly creative hands).

Gosh this disco babe even made it to the local dancefloor some time on Sunday morning to show those youngsters what three decades of wild dancing can bring about. My first real discos were dives in 80s Paris before these kids were even on the chart.

***
For Downith, my meme. I'm going to use this book, not my WIP, which doesn't even have page numbers on the print-out and is quite far from my daily thoughts. So here goes:
P77, line 7, 7 lines of 'The Divorced Lady's Companion to Living in Italy.'

'wagging his shaving brush. He started a long monologue which I presumed included his thoughts upon Italian cinema, given I caught a couple of key words: Sophia Loren and seno (breast). My question had unleashed a torrent, but I couldn't understand a thing.
'A te piace il sesso, scommetto?' He leant forward and said this in a sly intimate tone. I was beginning to figure out that he'

Et voilà!