Last year - by which I mean Christmas 2010 - I was very much behind schedule writing a book so I ended up not really doing Christmas at all. Mrs Gorman went off visiting family and I stayed at home and wrote. It was effective. I got the job done. But it wasn't really Christmas.
So this year I decided to do it in style. And with commitment. So I went offline on Christmas Eve and only revisited the world wide web a couple of days ago. And it wasn't just the internet that was forsaken. For New Year we went to a lovely place that didn't have a television. Bliss.
If you've read the book I was toiling away at 13 months ago (hint, it's this one) you'll have read about me visiting Tim Harford to play Agricola while he was staying in the Lake District. You'll know that Tim told me about the Landmark Trust - an organisation that rescues historically significant buildings, saves them from ruin - or bad development - and helps to pay for it all by letting them out as holiday lets. You might remember that I got quite enthusiastic about the idea and that I promised Mrs Gorman we'd be using the Landmark Trust for some exciting holidays at some point in the future.
And that's what we did for New Year. It was spectacular.
I've now got a big backlog of emails. And more tweets than I can possibly scroll back through. I gather that Googlewhack was shown on the box somewhere. I had no idea. Thanks to everyone who sent a nice message. Sorry I haven't replied. Switching off just seemed like a better idea than staying on. I feel refreshed.
And the radio silence is over. Especially come Sunday. When I'll be being noisy. On the radio.
7 comments:
Just had to say, I love the photo!
The landmark Trust is great, we've been to nine now (Gothic Temple at Stowe between crimbo and the New Year).
.....I have just gone through 2100 + emails in one of my business inboxes today after not checking them since Nov 8th!...so I know how you feel Dave
We love the Landmark Trust too. They are keeping great buildings intact and in use. We stayed at Saddell Castle (built 1608) on the Mull of Kintyre - rather splendidly, the castle and a cottage on thhe estate both feature in the Paul McCartney video for' Mull of Kintyre' - with a full pipe band. Class! A Happy New Year to you and Mrs G by the way.
Great photo (although it appears that two "SWAG" sacks have been airbrushed off your shoulders).
Is that Luttrell's Tower? We stayed there many years ago and pretended to see the QE2 out of the window on many occasions. This will only make sense to you if you've read the old log books :)
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