Sitting in the Costa Coffee in good old Heathrow Terminal 4. Got about twenty minutes before they start boarding my flight to Zürich and the last airborne leg of my journey back from the desert. I recommend the Chicken & Bacon Club Feast, although it is not in fact a feast.

Apologies to anyone I didn’t call last week, or didn’t get through to. Thunderstorm came through a couple of days in, knocked out the one cell tower my Euro-phone would talk to, didn’t get fixed till right before we left. But my DSL modem did turn up right before I got on the road (broadband, bitches!) and I’ll be getting my Skype on soon as I get back to Basel.

New Mexico was a blast. Fabulous writers, fabulous scenery, fabulous food. (I particularly recommend Walter’s gumbo, Maureen’s vegetarian coconut shrimp, and Jay’s momos.) Opinion was divided on my story, but people seemed to like my tomato curry. (Maureen and I were the only cooks to leave no leftovers. We win!) Had possibly the best eight-dollar meal of my life at a little bar / grill / convenience store in Arroyo Seco: one styrofoam pint green chile stew, three perfectly fried chicken taquitos. Drank my share of Negra Modelo with lime and also Kameron Hurley’s since she wasn’t there and the beer was. Also, lemongrass ice cream is Da Bomb.

And the writers, did I mention the writers? Walter, Mikey, Howard, Maureen, Gavin, Kelly, Jay, Daniel, Paolo, Carrie, Nina, Ray, Ted — best critique group evar. I could feel myself getting smarter all week long.

And the scenery. God, I miss the desert already. And the mountains. They just don’t make ’em like that anywhere else.

I’m not supposed to be thinking about what I’m doing after Switzerland, but I hear there’s a lot of bioinformatics in Santa Fe.