Leaving Cove Park

Leaving day is strange. I spent the moment preparing cuttings of hazel, holly, rowan, birch and honeysuckle in the hope they'll survive my roundabout return to Shetland (a complicated tupperware contraption with wet paper towel and seperated ice; making one final rope (last year's reeds and pink plastic marine fibre); porridge; packing; sweeping (I like sweeping); strip the bed; goodbyes – I'm so happy about the folk I've met here. Ducks and deer this morning. Heading off for the little ferry from Kilcreggan soon, then Gourock – Glasgow – Edinburgh.

I said I'd try and articulate a little of Jan Vervoert's lecture. Better to look his new book up, but I'm taking away with me his extrapolation of the idea of musical instruments that can protect you from demons because they contain a demon; that perhaps, when you draw something, what you draw enters your moving wrist, demon-like. I couldn't help but think of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Art as mimicry. Which is moving to me, so interested as I am in how we mimic each others' spoken language both deliberately and involuntarily.

Ideas about different ways to bear emotion and responsibility. Ideas about emotion being a public and not a private thing, as we often like to think. And this is where I'll have to stop, because my lift is waiting...