Also, commiserations. Because since for well over a year now I’ve had a plan to create a basket of artwork from which the person I deem to have posted the comment of the week could freely choose something as a thank you from me. It would include some items that are available for purchase.

However, as you may have noticed, I still haven’t got around to implementing the plan, and I can’t until I have full access to a studio of some description. Had I, though, then I would now be telling you to take your pick. Sorry.

Watch this space. There’ll be other days.

See for me all that flatness threw me. After having being able always to place myself in my mind’s eye on the map - in Scotland you’re never far from a coast or a hill or some sort of identifying feature - the flatness of Minnesota , the inability to locate myself easily in my mind-map, made me feel like I was adrift, that nothing was firm. When I really contemplated the vastness of the plains what I felt was a sort of queasiness and a hint of panic. We were all exposed humans, there was no nook of land to curl into like an animal. I felt scarily human amidst all that flat and it was some time before I began to feel I could get used to that. But I still like a rumpled land better - it’s less psychologically threatening.