---

If one is lucky, a single fantasy can totally transform a million realities.
-Maya Angelou

A lot can be said when it comes to women and beauty, some say the eyes, some the hair. Some may claim the shoe number and some a pretty nose. I gather it all in one word, womanhood. And I wonder whether the greatest female virtue is not actually a warm simple smile ... There are few certainties in meeting exotic characters but it is safe for me to say that I have not met anyone as beautiful as Mal for a long time.
Like a river flows surely to the sea some things are meant to be. I was meant to come across this evening Rita Nash, the most famous biblio-lover of Martin Smith Bookshop Bondi fame, and her Czechoslovak-born friend at Glenmore Rd on the way to Mark's place. The only cloud on the horizon is that Rita has not sold million copies of Cold River yet ... BUT I am told that she is working on it ;-)

June, my guardian angel, at Tara Street is well and trully aware that future must be entrusted to Hope alone. May Hope be equal to the task! To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing ...