To these people, never underestimate the friendship and camaraderie you’ve given both me and this book: Joan DeMayo, Nancy Siscoe, Mandy Hurley, Nancy Hinkel, Amanda Zhorne, Dana Reinhardt, Tom and Laura McNeal, Andy, Sally, Inge, Bernd, Leena, Raff, Gus, Twain, Johnny, and TW.
Special mention to:
Blockie: For walks with Floyd; for listening. Picasso. All roads lead to Huddart.
Angus and Masami Hussey: Game-changers, life-changers, the best of different continents.
Jorge Oakim: I’d climb any wall, anywhere. Thanks for everything.
Vic Morrison: Not only for music and piano-moving (and tuning) advice, but for a lifetime of art and risk, and the story that led to the Slaves.
Halina and Jacek Drwecki: For love and arguments over the ins and outs of Polish, and for stories of camps and cockroaches: so big!
Maria and Kiros Alexandratos: For first talks on bridge-building.
Tim Lloyd: For help and advice on all things equine, not least driving me around Otford, finding something approximating a mule.
HZ: For typically wry advice on roughing up the German language.
Zdenka Dolejska: For that one line of Czech…Every little bit counts. Thank you.
Jules Kelly: Secret keeper extraordinaire.
The mysterious Frau H.
And Tim Smith: For all the inspiration, and for waiting in the water.
To the other mz: Decades don’t just disappear. They disappear like this. Thanks for making me see what life would be like without finishing. As always, you were the difference.
Lastly, to all readers everywhere: It’s nothing without you. Thanks for all of everything.
mz