Vale

This is by way of being a farewell, as I've decided to stop blogging, at least for a while.  The challenges of a new job in a new location, and the daily workload of getting the children to school, mucking out the horses, not to mention bell-ringing rehearsals and tending to the garden, mean its all just too much.  When I found I was reading with even a thought of duty in my mind, I knew it was time to go!

I've enjoyed the writing, and I've enjoyed the occasional comment - whether witty, informative, or challenging, and I shall be sorry to lose that.  But I haven't enjoyed the difficulty of dealing with typepad's clunky and inflexible system, or trying to get things put right when anything goes wrong (often), nor the occasional bouts of offensive spam.

But let me leave you on two positive notes:

• Last weekend, as part of the Chipping Campden literary festival, to Burnt Norton, locus of T S Eliot's poem of the same name (the first of the Four Quartets).  I only heard about this the morning of the event, a moment of Eliotesqe serendipidity in itself. As this is a private garden, this was a treat, in spite of driving rain and freezing winds.  A learned Eliot scholar took us round, and the garden is well worth a visit in its own right.  Burnt Norton is enhanced and personalised by this visit.

• I recommend Timothy Garton Ash's recent book of political journalism - Facts are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade without a Name, which is erudite and entertaining on the politics of the past decade, without ever being a heavy read.

Enjoy all your reading, try something new every now and then; never let your reading become a duty or a bore.  You are old enough to give up an uninteresting book, now, and free not to read the classics or the fashionable.  Go well!

Lindsay

Comments

[Katlyn]

just wondering if this blog is still being updated.

[john (builders in mansfield)]

No man you cant quit writing your blog ive only just found it and i love reading your work

. . . (hardcore internet FAN!!)

[Donna]

sorry to hear this, hope you'll be back soon with a blast!

[Maria]

Timothy Garton Ash's recent book of political journalism is one of the best books I've ever read regarding the subject. I suggest it to anyone interested in the subject...

[adele geras]

I, too, will miss your blog very much. I do hope you come back as a sane voice in some comments boxes not a million miles away from Cornflower, let's say....Thanks for everything esp the Anthony Powell enlightenment. Have fun!

[Dark Puss]

Dear Glo, you are too kind! You can follow some of my thoughts here if you wish http://morganas-cat.tumblr.com/ Not of course up to the standards that Lindsay has set but you might still find something of occasional interest.

Who knows, we may meet again in another space?

Very best wishes to you from your favourite virtual feline.

[salisbury john]

As someone who knows you well (I hope this is not giving too much away) both in your day job and as Lindsay, just to say how much I have appreciated the companionship of BDFAR these years - its erudition, its boyish enthusiasms, its lack of rancour, its openness to new experience, above all its sanity. I shall miss it very much. Thank you.

[glo]

Whatever your new activities include, I just hope you're not giving up writing for television like Powell's Lindsay Bagshaw!
I too echo previous comments concerning how much I have enjoyed reading your blog, how much I have learned and discovered - and sometimes gawped too.
Enjoy your reading, Mr Bagshaw, and good luck to you! I wish you all the best.

As a side consequence, there will be no season 4 in the series "The Cat and I", and I want to send a fond farewell to the loveliest e-cat in the blogosphere, Dark Puss.

[ctussaud]

Thank you for the corners and byways you have illuminated for me with the beam of your knowledge.

[Jilly]

I can only echo previous comments and hope that you will return at some time in the not too distant future. I have regularly read and enjoyed your "posts" and thank you for them.

[Mary Ronan Drew]

I'm very sorry to see you go and I hope you won't disappear entirely. Perhaps you will continue to post occasionally? You read such an interesting variety of books and have such interesting things to say about them. I've picked up many titles from you that have been a delight to me. But I do understand that when blogging becomes a chore it may continue to please us the readers but it's not so pleasant for you any more.

md

[Mr Cornflower]

Your blog has been eclectic, erudite, witty, fascinating and deeply civilised. You will continue to be all these things after the blog has ceased. I have very much enjoyed reading it; I fully sympathise with your reasons for stopping. I hope the world has not heard the last of Lindsay Bagshaw's alter ego.

[Harriet]

Sorry to see you go, but if you must you must. I've enjoyed your blog and hope it may reappear one day.

[Cornflower]

You already know my feelings about your decision, which I fully understand and respect. I hope time and inclination will eventually lead you to return here, as I shall miss your postings greatly.

[mary lou]

I will miss reading your weblog. You have introduced me to many books. I have recently (finally) tracked down the first volumes of Dance to the Music of Time. As a fellow reader and horse person, I salute the effort you put into this. Thank you.

[Dark Puss]

I can't tell you how much pleasure your weblog has given me. I'm glad you are going out while it is still at the top of my list of "must see" sites. You are absolutely right to abandon it if it has ceased to be fun, I know I will when my little foray becomes something I worry about having a daily, weekly, or even a regular posting upon.

I commend your last paragraph especially.

The cat bows before you.