We're back in England now. But we started the month on the Isle of Man, and were there for four wonderful weeks.





For more Isle of Man views than you probably want, start here, and keep clicking on through. Don't let my silly words detain you (there aren't many of them anyway). Just breeze through the pictures, and let the landscapes and the sea and the ancientness do their thing. I'm sure you'll start to see why I love it so much.

We were really lucky with the weather this time, and were able to walk a lot. I won't even try to pick out favourite routes. It was all good. All very purple:





We did a couple of train rides. If you're familiar with this blog, you'll know (because I repeat it so often) that Manx steam trains are magic capsules, capable of returning me to the good (and only the good) bits of childhood:


As I write, part of me is still over there, I think, but we left on Monday, and are now happily ensconced in a Derbyshire village called Winster.



Throughout the month, wherever we've been, seeing friends and family has been the element that has stood out in gold. These relationships are increasingly precious.

We're not in England for long this time round. A third of the way into November, the plan is to set off towards the Mediterranean. If things go according to timetable, the November review should be coming from Corsica. Fingers crossed.

There have been 28 posts on the blog this month... A Purple Tern record. It stands to reason, then, that The Velvet Cushion has suffered a bit, with a lot of books still in the pipeline, waiting to be popped out when there's time. Successful in making it into the October annals were: Slow Horses, a mordant little politico-spy yarn by Mick Herron; Manx Gold, a short story by Agatha Christie, specifically written to attract tourists to the Isle of Man in the 1930s; Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym, a melancholy tale of aging, whose mostly sombre tone is relieved by just the tiniest injection of hope at the end; Human Voices, an impressionistic account of the BBC in war-time by Penelope Fitzgerald (who herself worked for the BBC during the war); and Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers, an astute run-down of the state of women's higher education in the 1930s (with a bit of crime thrown in).




I don't know about you, but I'm nervous at the moment. In all kinds of ways, I feel I'm poised on the threshold of something. Things are changing -- for me, for my friends and family, for the wider world -- and we're really not in control of any of the shifts.

Today, while looking up something about Manx keeills, I came across a prayer attributed to St Brendan. With its precise articulation of everything I want for myself and those around me, it hit me like a gut punch. I think it's fine to borrow each other's aspirations, whatever our religion or philosophy, and send them out to whatever we think shapes the universe. So here it is, in case it sums things up for you too:

Help me to journey beyond the familiar
and into the unknown.
Give me the faith to leave old ways
and break fresh ground with You.

Christ of the mysteries, I trust You
to be stronger than each storm within me.
I will trust in the darkness and know
that my times, even now, are in Your hand.
Tune my spirit to the music of heaven,
and somehow, make my obedience count for You.

***

I like that "somehow". We have, after all, so little idea of the bigger picture, or the infinite number of ways in which bad can be turned to good, despite everything.

This time next month, the world could be a very different place. Whatever happens, I hope that "somehow" we can stay in tune with a grander kind of music, and make the little bit of good within us keep counting for the larger good everywhere.