AlecBell, as I am sure many of you know, is a very great poet and a wonderfully helpful deviant, which is, I'm sure you will agree, bad enough. I am here, however, to annoy the jealous by saying that he is also among the kindest and most interesting people I have ever met.

Over the past few days he invited =Pickled-Poppy and I not only to his wildly successful and entertaining poetic open mic Dog Day's Night at the Poetry Cafe, Covent Gardens (which was extremely enjoyable, and if you can attend the next one, whenever it may occur, do), but also into his home.

Having had the opportunity to meet Mr Bell and his family (his daughters, Amy of and Charlotte are both members of this fine site) I can say that they are all people of the highest order and will be first on the list when the Queen's Honours start going to sweet, welcoming people (which can't be too long, since they've been going to footballers for some time now, for the love of...).

But the joy did not stop there, as in the morning =Pickled-Poppy and I had the privilege of being present for the discovery of Alec's first Daily Deviation (but not the last, I strongly suspect) for his very deserving piece, which is a wickedly intelligent exploration of Francis Bacon's artistic process.

Perhaps I have fawned enough, but I shall leave the subject with this comment: Mr. Bell is firmly within the top one most interesting people to talk to, ever. No joke. With all of ancient, fascinating London spread before me yesterday, I very nearly forgot and spent the day in pleasantly meandering and exceptionally informative conversation instead. This man could teach a potato the finer points of Freud, and I fear that is very close to what he was doing.

Thank you for everything, Alec.

There are a mere eleven days remaining in which you may get an entry in for 's Letters to Loved Ones contest and give yourself the chance of receiving many fabulous prizes. I will be typing out my entry the second I finish writing this journal, so this would also be your opportunity to crush me like a bug.

Finally, I should mention that our beautiful puppies, Suzy and Summer are very happily settled in to life with my peculiar little family, and are, it seems, growing every day. If you, like me, enjoy cute puppies and such things, then I recommend watching them in action in this video: [link]