Many people in Northern Ireland would sympathise with a letter in this newspaper yesterday under the heading, "Tiring of the North", in which M.D. Kennedy from Glenageary complained of the interminable nature of the peace process, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
It's three weeks since the Leeds Castle talks. They ended inconclusively but with hope and some expectation that a deal would be done in the short term as the remaining obstacles centred on the machinery of the Belfast Agreement rather than what was the main issue of the past 10 years - the IRA.
Surely, as Ulster Unionist leader Mr David Trimble contended, if the IRA was offering a commitment to disarm and go away, that commitment should be quickly tested rather than the parties unnecessarily squabbling over the so-called anorak issues.
The three main papers here - the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News, the News Letter - continue to cover the process but the story generally is relegated to the inside pages. When something concrete happens it will be on the front page again. But when will that be?
Don't despair, a senior British source urged our Glenageary correspondent: "Things may be flat - but they haven't flat lined."
Behind the scenes the parties are engaging with senior Irish and British officials. Mr Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin was in London yesterday meeting Mr Tony Blair's chief of staff, Mr Jonathan Powell, and other senior officials. On a regular basis Mr Peter Robinson, Mr David Trimble and Mr Mark Durkan are talking to the main Dublin and London mandarins who for years have been struggling to steer this process to the finishing line.
The Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, after his health scare at the Labour Party conference, is due back behind his desk at Stormont next week when he is expected to meet the new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern.
At the moment the three main points of contention are: ministerial accountability; whether to elect Ian Paisley or Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness on the one ticket, so to speak, as First and Deputy First Minister; and policing.
Ideas are being exchanged on these matters and, Dublin and London sources insist, they are capable of resolution; it just needs more work. Ministerial accountability is proving the most intractable problem, we are told.
Yet when you look beyond the minutiae of the negotiations, there are still reasons to be guardedly hopeful. When viewed on a broad canvas, the main figures are Ian Paisley and P O'Neill. The questions Mr Ahern and Mr Blair regularly ask themselves are: Is Dr Paisley really up for this deal, as his deputy appears to be, or will he ultimately do what he has always done in the past, say no? And when the IRA says it will disarm and end activity, is there some Jesuitical catch that the governments are missing?
Senior Irish sources say that before Dr Paisley's visit to Dublin last week, Mr Ahern entertained doubts about the DUP leader's true intentions, but that after that encounter the Taoiseach was convinced "in his gut" that this time the Doc means business.
The governments also appear reasonably persuaded that the DUP and Sinn Féin want to do a deal now rather than after the Westminster elections next year.
As for P O'Neill, there is always an underlying governmental fear that the IRA will fall short, offering enough for the republican constituency but not enough to reassure unionists. The IRA may be prepared to allow photographs or some other visual element to decommissioning this time, as reported here after Leeds Castle, but disarmament won't involve any "CNN moment", as some DUP people demand.
"As far as transparency is concerned, there appears to be a reality gap between what the DUP expects and what the IRA will do," was how one senior Dublin source explained it. He again stressed, however, that the IRA appeared genuine in its offer to quit the paramilitary stage.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and his British counterpart, Mr Blair, are visiting south-east Asia and Africa, respectively, with the former not returning until next Friday. Any Irish-British decision to put "take it or leave it" proposals to the parties, or more optimistically to sign off on an agreed paper, will require their authorisation.
So, in terms of the public face of the process it will probably take until the week after next before we get an idea of whether and how the Irish and British governments will propel the process forward.
That's bringing us towards the end of October and closer to the Christmas or January deadline when the governments hope to see the Northern Executive and Assembly back in operation and the IRA out of operation. The timeframe is getting tighter all the time.
It may be no comfort to M.D. Kennedy, but as ever the watchwords in this protracted process are patience, perseverance and hope.