I have been away for a while: away from work, from home, from friends, from goodreads. I don't think anybody missed me. Maybe I was only actually away from myself, lost amongst the reality around me, wondering where I am, and more importantly, where I am going.

I have been writing, musing, drinking coffee and sitting looking at Lake Windermere. High up on a hill; above me buzzards circling, around me sheep grazing, below me, far below me, people wandering like ghosts in a dream. I used to go to the hills of Langdale when I was on leave from Northern Ireland many years ago. I went to hide from the tension of sectarian violence, from the responsibility of trying to stop it. I used to wander across the fells like Wordsworth; lonely as a cloud.

But this time I went to hide from my own ghosts. I found them in a box as I cleared out the remnants of my past in order to move into a smaller home on my own. Pictures of women who were once close companions, intense lovers, good friends, and wives, but they are now mere photographs, memories, almost ghosts. The women are smiling, happy, often naked; playing on a beach, walking in a forest, lying in a bed. I liked to photograph my lovers to capture their beauty or the beauty of the moment, and the images invoke happy, almost visceral, memories.

In her song, Madonna describes two souls in a ghost town being together as the world goes to hell. It is a nice idea, but Adam Lambert's song of the same title is less optimistic. I am not sure where I am in this context: the memories are wonderful, but that is all they are. My children ask me if ghosts are real and I say no, they only exist in Scooby Doo programmes, and even then they are usually just the janitor in a costume. So it seems a little ironic, given that I don't believe in ghosts, that I am so haunted by former lovers.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Trouble-W...