<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><entry xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23876539.post-114882488076024789</id><published>2006-05-28T13:47:00.000Z</published><updated>2006-05-28T14:01:20.770Z</updated><title type='text'>To the lake</title><content type='html'>Toni thinks I'm back in England, but I'm not. I've let her think that - told her so in emails - it felt too dangerous to tell her the truth. Maybe I'm just getting paranoid. Am I getting paranoid, dear reader? Are you still out there? Are you reading me? I need to know. Need to know i'm not going mad. I saved up coins for a few days (found some on the street too) and rang Tim, just to check that I was still alive - still real, and not dreaming all this. His voice was just the same - it was so great to hear it - he said everything back home is just as I left it. Nothings changed (except that all the cars have little England flags flying from their back windows - football or something, he said) - it was so good to hear. Good old England. Good old stupid grey dull and never changing England. God I miss it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've been making my way gradually north (I think) - hitching, walking, sleeping rough sometimes. The beach is a good place to sleep - I've hooked up with some good people along the way - building big fires, sharing what food we have. I'm almost out of money. I feel stripped away - the last few vestiges of my old life, my life before, my identity are all leaving me. I am lighter, thinner, freer than I've ever been in my whole life. I almost feel like I could step off the ground and fly, like a lost balloon- high high into the air - coming to land in some far off country - or maybe not coming to land at all...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've heard there's a good place not far from here - with a big lake and trees and kind people - a place I could stay and maybe get some work  - get some money - some proper food - clean clothes - a shower. I'm going to keep going till I find it - keep putting one foot in front of the other&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/23876539-114882488076024789?l=stripthelightfantastic.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://stripthelightfantastic.blogspot.com/feeds/114882488076024789/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=23876539&amp;postID=114882488076024789' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/23876539/posts/default/114882488076024789'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/23876539/posts/default/114882488076024789'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://stripthelightfantastic.blogspot.com/2006/05/to-lake.html' title='To the lake'/><author><name>Jez</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03962850973089407964</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:extendedProperty xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' name='OpenSocialUserId' value='09461424517760046087'/></author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>2</thr:total></entry>