Getting on

If I die tomorrow, I will have known what it is to be truly happy.

It's not just Jed, the kids, the dog, the cats, the pigs, sheep, chickens and the goslings either. It's taken a while, but it's true; the older I get, the more I realize that squeezing myself into tight boxes and trying on uncomfortable versions of myself was just about laying the hardcore of what I'm only now really beginning to understand. All that experience - good and bad, all those books I've read and films I've watched in skived afternoons and (not so often, but just as thrillingly) late night flea pits were the edges and blue sky of the jigsaw now falling into place; all those courses, workshops, mentors and gurus, pains in the backside, energy vampires and moments of pure inspiration are all now fluttering down to produce a picture of my life aged 46. And it doesn't look bad.

Stumbling into The University of Brighton, laden down with my rucksack of life experience, propelled me into classrooms of raw, uncarved genius and reminded me how jaw-droppingly beautiful it can be, particularly when its owner trips over it at the same time. Pulling those students, not always willingly, into the darkness of their own soggy minds means taking all of us into unfamiliar territory, and how refreshing that can be. Then, tentatively at first but increasingly with more spontaneity and confidence, reaching into my bulging bag of tricks, I've helped them find gold. What will it be like when I use those exercises on the scientists, the maths students, the business students? And then into Big Business with my academic research, suitably fellowshipped-up to make me 'proper'...

The Sussex House Party's creative dinner parties start next week with Philip Carr-Gomm on magic and spirituality, and with them, the launch of the writers' retreats here in the most beautiful house in the world, with its giant gossamer curtains turning the rain pink.

And the synchronicity of it all is what makes the incessant rain seem like a glorious garden sprinkler rather than a heavy downpour, and reminds me what it's like in the slipstream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily...