Trouble with Stormcock. Wont eat her food, nor take her medicine, and seems more beastly careless than even usual. Probably I should ween her, start her on the bottle, but she's such a sweet pussy-cat, those terrible green eyes I find so hard to resist!

The lake has disappeared again. People come from miles around to gawk and take photos. They don't see me, though. I'm quite adept after all these years at my stealth practise of keeping to the heavy foliage of my property. If any straglers start venturing over towards my patch I immediately scare them off with some bear calls & wolf howls. I could just set the wolves on them, I suppose, but there's no use, the holwing is effective enough. I notice the hangman watching from his window. God knows what he would do to these hypnotised dupes if he got hold of them. Curiosity killed the cat! And the entrepid explorer! I know he sees me lurking in the trees, but no one else does. Its as if they're neve seen a disappearing lake before. Which I guess they havn't. But we (the Hangman & I) see it come and go all the time, from our respective windows. During the summer it evaporates as if overnight. Then, a night of rain, and one wakes up to see a glassy lake seperating the village from these properties on the outskirts.

Bopsi has still not called. And Im wondering if I am fooling myself. I am not cut out for these  'long distance' releationships.  Plus they're very expensive, even if you call between four & six. Bopsi costs $2 a minute at any hour!

I played some records in the attic & looked thru some old papers. Some of which almost brought me to tears. Photo's & the like. I found an old newspaper with the heading THE STRANGE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING LAKE and a photo of Babyman riding his space-hopper along the bank, which some idiots mistook as the silluoette of some kind of 'loch ness monster'. Good grief... I still havn't sorted that mess out yet. Let it be. Give the tourists more reason to come out into the wilderness & more game for the Hangman. I myself am not interested in the safety of gormless sticky-beaks. Let their own stupidity be the death of them. I am far more interested in the injured wildlife I find on my long walks over the hills. That's where I found Stormcock, and my pet wolves, Starjumper & Spiritdancer. If it were not for man & his greed for endless mental stimulation without spiritual sustainance, this world would be a paradise.

Drew a large glass of brandy after dinner. Rubbed it out and drew a house with the sun shining over top.