Dear Lora,

Please start here… https://schnark.home.blog/2024/10/16/the-man-who-wrote-real-fiction/

Or, if catching up, go here for chapter selection… https://schnark.home.blog/category/other-things/fiction/

Or in particular… https://schnark.home.blog/2024/10/21/dear-george/

Otherwise this will make no sense!

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Dear Lora,

Dear big, strong, Catalan Lora,

Thank you for your letters, I will treasure them as I treasure my memories of you, and the time we spent together.

I was more a man for those short days than I’ve ever been, or will ever likely be, and I think you have changed me, but I also think that you can, and will get over me.

You might not think so now but it is most likely that as you slowed me down a little on the hill above Glenfinnan, I would certainly slow you down in time, and that isn’t something I will risk, though my slowing down opened up a whole world of beauty and new experience for me.

You have a winter now to make preparations, mental and physical, and in the spring you will seek fresh adventures, and be as open to who you meet as you were to me. Since you respect me, treat this as a command, the only one I’ll make of you.

I don’t expect to hear from you for a long time, but when, or, if I do, I want to hear that you’ve found love and happiness, or have joined the Strange Sisters of Vallbona, and I hope we can be good friends. If you have done neither, I am not the answer.

It isn’t just that I am married, though that is more so now than it was, but that I am old at heart, and you are too young and fresh, and I will not abide the contrast.

I had learned an expression in Spanish to sign off, but I can’t use it because it means looking forward to seeing you, and we both need to accept that we might not.

Once again I wish you every happiness

Your George.