You will no doubt have missed me. I have been a little busy finishing off a dissertation – or maybe it finished me off! We will now find out if I have any writing skills left at all.

I am about to embark upon a voyage of discovery about D H Lawrence. I traipsed up to the Library on George IV Bridge yesterday to get a new reader’s card and there was the book that I had been desperate to read since I rekindled my scant acquaintance with the author last year in New Mexico. I did some reading at the time to discover that Frieda who married him had actually eloped leaving her three children behind her. What drives a woman to do that over a man? He must have been very charismatic to say the least.

Lawrence is single handedly responsible for many books and works of considerable importance. He was also an artist. He painted the bathroom windows at Mabel Dodge Luhan’s house in Taos, New Mexico apparently to spare the blushes of any neighbours. Luhan is herself an interesting character who at one point appears to have socialised with Picasso! I had a fairly watery though free cup of coffee there last year when I visited. The house has since belonged to Dennis Hopper of Easy Rider fame but is now run as a kind of retreat where you can find solitude in today’s busy world. Lawrence also completed some oil paintings which have not always been publicly displayed, but which are apparently still in New Mexico.

There is something connecting Lawrence, Luhan and Georgia O’Keefe along with Frieda and New Mexico.

So will you come with me on this journey? Do let me know!