A tidy mind

Decided at the last minute against a day of Buddhism with Sophie, and instead chose to get to grips with my home which had plummeted into a shambolic mess. Fortunately Sophie was fine about it, and we'll meet up in the next week or so. A lovely chat. Having known each other since we were 19 it really feels like we are brother and sister sometimes. She may be coming down to Brighton with the family again soon, which will be fun.

So a day of laundry, washing up, washing kitchen and bathroom floors. And now I can almost walk properly again. To celebrate this excellent news, I went shopping: buying food and shirts, energy-efficient lightbulbs (following mass lightbulb suicide pact over the last few days) and special bathroom cleaning spray that kills mould, and a backup disk drive so that if my laptop is stolen again or blows up I haven't lost all my work. Stupidly I began shopping for this last thing without consulting Anton. What was I thinking? A quick chat with him and I had the right one from the right shop in minutes.

Felt a big sense of relief to get things under control for a bit. Unfortunately my boiler is now making an occasional and very loud noise like a screaming horse. This can't be a good thing, and it makes me jump out of my skin every time it happens.

On a better note, my poem which was misprinted in Other Poetry is going to be reprinted. They were very apologetic, which was nice of them. Meanwhile was looking through A Hudson View, the new international magazine edited by Amitabh Mitra which is pretty interesting. It's always fascinating to see so voices side by side from different cultures. Amitabh will print some of mine in the second issue which I am looking forward to.

In the evening went up to Anton's place and had a splendid evening listening to twenty Jam singles in a row, and eating his home-made pizzas, and drinking Czech beer. Listening to the Jam kicked off an enjoyable nostalgia trip for punk rock, and London in the 70s. And at the end of the night we polished off the final bite of his Christmas cake with some Port before I shambled happily down the hill to bed.

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