GO HOME, OLD MAN OF THE WOODS

I'm back in the room with the ticking clock. It's funny how it doesn't seem quite so loud now at the end of the week. Tomorrow, I pack up the car and go home.

I wonder how I'll remember this week, what the standout moments will be. Perhaps trying to complete the crossword and failing miserably. Maybe getting stuck in a thunderstorm, finding the cross, or traipsing around Buxton in the rain with soggy shoes and a rumbling stomach. It's actually been quite a lot of fun and although I haven't really had much in the way of social interaction, I do feel kind of confident and cool in my own skin. Those moments on top of hills with the wind and the sun have been sublime for that.

I feel like I've seen quite a lot of stuff too. Yesterday, I drove to a place called Edale and did some sketching. Up there, the peaks soar a little higher and the road peels through the hills, offering some spectacular views. I stopped the car and tried a little sketching. There's something very special about the way the light moves across the peaks here. Where the almost-triangular fells of the Lake District rise rockily into the clouds, these hills are much gentler, greener and smoother somehow. The clouds roll over them. As ever, I sat on the stile, sketchbook across my knees, taken aback by the silence, thankful that I get to live in such a beautiful land.

Confident and cool. Yeah, man. Like the old man of the woods who stares at me in the bathroom mirror. My introvert side is thoroughly satisfied; the rest of me just wants to get home and party. It's deluded of course - I don't want that at all; I'd just like to see some people and try to remember how to be normal.