Phew! That rare and precious commodity - a day off. Slept till after eight and rose to realise that this was day nineteen. The halfway mark. Another nineteen to go, and then home.

It was odd. I listened to some Francis Cabrel and felt the odd, bittersweet pain of homesickness. I've been too busy so far on this trip to even think about it. That's the trouble with taking a pause - too much time to think.

So I just let the day wash over me. La Patronne and I went with Susie to pick up wine from a fabulous winestore where the owner, David Berkley, a lovely man with a ready smile and a prickly white beard, discussed each and every bottle. And there were nearly thirty of them. Boy, does he know his stuff!

I picked out a bottle of whisky from the smallest distillery in Scotland, which is sited in the beautiful Perthshire village of Pitlochry. I'd never heard of this whisky - Edradour - but it is aged ten years and finished in sauternes casks. Very sweet. But also very strong - 56.8 percent. Wow!!

A lazy afternoon was rounded off by a party in the evening. A bunch of Susie's friends, and her mom and sister Kathy, came around, and we drank lethal Margaritas and munched on pulled pork in tortilla wraps, with salsa and guacomole. And wine. And more wine. And whisky.

And then bed, and none too soon.

Sunday is the launch party. There are more than sixty people coming, and the bookstore from Davis is bringing the books to sell. Susie and Kathy have done a brilliant job of setting this up.

So now it's up to me to shine. Time to kick myself back out of pause mode, and gird my loins for the next nineteen days.