under another sun

Walked down to the station this morning, as Lorraine was able to sleep in a bit having a meeting. Absorbed in the Cope book there and back on the train. It is a double sided book, like Richard and my A Guernsey Double , with the two books of his memoirs on it, Head-on and Repossessed . How these people stayed alive is beyond me. While high on a cocktail of drugs, one of the games the musicians played was called Sock, where Cope would put a sock over his head and climb out of a window across the roof of the moving tour bus and in through another one on the other side. I arrived at work feeling irritable. However as the day wore on things improved, and Keith and I worked together cheerfully enough. Bought some sushi for lunch. Supportive text from Lorraine made a big difference. Also Anton and I arranged to have a cheeky bout of woof woof wings with a beer tomorrow. Last minute changes in the presentation Keith and I were putting together meant that I didn't get home till nine. ...

Last day in Guernsey. Met up for an early breakfast. Lorraine and I both had strange stomachs after last night, but found ourselves able to fork down yet another breakfast with the others. We all split up to pack. Lorraine and I walked up near the Captains to photograph where Wendy had lived, and then back to walk to Icart to drink in the beauty one last time. The morning was beautiful and rainwashed. Then back to the Barbarie where we had an early lunch meeting Jade's mother Sian, and then Jade's Aunt Lynne. To Sian I gave a copy of A Guernsey Double , as it came out in our conversation. Fond farewells with Sam and Jade, and Sian -- then Lynne was kind enough to give us a lift back to the airport. She lives on the island and Sam and Jade and Sian were going to stay with her.  John had been on a walk on his own this morning, looking to find the water lanes again, which he fell in love with and cramming quite a few adventures in back from St Martin's village. A fairly un...

Up for the full Guernsey Breakfast this morning. Nice to be less delicate this morning. I popped out quickly to visit Gwen and Dave's grave, and say hello to the half a dozen people I remember in there. Then all off into Town. Went up to mooch about in The Guernsey Museum and briefly in Candie Gardens. Liked this pictures in the museum, including the octopus below from an exhibit about The Toilers on the Sea by Victor Hugo. An interesting collection there, including some by an artist called Brenda Munson who mum used to like. There was also a lego exhibition of a big things such as ships made with bits of lego. Why this was in the Guernsey museum I have no idea, and a waste of space as far as I was concerned. Noted that A Guernsey Double was still on sale in the shop there however, which pleased me. And on this note, down into town where Lorraine and I met up with the very chic  and Italianate Jane and Richard, for an all too brief coffee and gossip in Le Petit Bistro, be...

After a spot of swine health work first thing (swinewriting), continued to work through my giant list. Sending more poetry out into the world. Chuffed this evening to get an acceptance from Ink Sweat and Tears , which will appear in about ten weeks. No doubt I will be trumpeting it like the worst kind of popinjay. The editor Helen Ivory has chosen Hooked , from  A Guernsey Double as they don't mind if the work has been previously published.  Bloody cold day and the wind whistling in my study as I spoke to Mum on Face Time. Black smuts falling down the chimney into the study too. I also spoke to Janet who has been released back into the wild after her operation on Monday, and she is at home and pleased to be there. Lorraine home early and we went down to the dungeon where there is an ill fitting window frame, which we had tried to block off. Lorraine more efficient in the dungeon as she can stand up down there, whereas I have to stand with my neck at ninety degrees. Beth...

A hard slog in the Old Church Hall. Getting the sample chapters ready and working on the covering letter for days. I have noticed also outbreaks of self-sabotaging slapdashery, sudden losses of confidence, displacement activities, exhaustion  and so on. I seem to see these for what they are however, which I think I have not been able to before. When not thinking about the big project, I have been fiddling with my poetry pamphlet The Nightwork . It has 14 pages for poems, which will let me collect some earlier poems that that were not in A Guernsey Double, and aren't too embarrassing to contemplate. This makes it possible to focus on a whole generation of newer poems. Otherwise little to report. Lorraine working very hard as usual. Both of us need a break and -- thanks be! -- we have one next week. Happened upon this picture of Charlie Brown that seems to sum it all up for me.

Up to the smoke again. Working on the Defenders of Guernsey on the way up. But seemed to have sprung from the wrong side of bed this morning, and felt vile and tetchy all day. Not that the day's events helped, with clarity about what Jules and I should be working on hard to come by. Late to leave work. Missed the train by a second, having to arrest my gallop on board due to crowd of small children suddenly underfoot. Galled by this and prompted to some John Cleese style ranting on the platform. Galled too, after waiting tetchily for the next train, by the woman I made room for to sit next to me in the crowded train, who held my glove disgustedly between her manicured fingernails. Read the Primo Levi book on the way home. An interesting book, as much for its form as its content. Home and Lorraine had been painting parts of the living room white, a great improvement, as the wall was a species of cream with patches of dirty white.  Lorraine is on holiday and I feel a little bad ab...

Sleepy and unfocused as the lively weekend took its toll. I went to London today for a general mooch around and to meet Mario Petrucci, who is an old friend who has become a fairly famous poet. I waited some time for him at Baker Street station, where I was early and he very delayed by appalling trains. Reminded me of times I used to meet Mum there when we both worked in London as I lurked by the Sherlock Holmes statue. Waiting gave me the opportunity to do a spot of freelance tour guiding, being obliged to point people to the nearby Madame Tussuad's. Great to see Mario, who I had not seen in a couple of decades.  He had commuted down from Brunel University, where he has a residency. We repaired to a local cafe and spent two and a half hours chatting. I had re-read his  iTulips recently, and this really is a magnificent book; spare and modernist, but full of beautiful words and imagery and vibrant emotion. I told him how much I admired it. He t...

Three Peakes and a harbour A great night's sleep, and fantastic not to be seeing the world through a veil of exhaustion. Detailed conversation about Leicester Tigers rugby club, by two guests who had adopted Lorraine yesterday. I found myself fresh out of cheerful sports banter department before I'd even had a cup of tea. Lorraine and I took a transcendentally beautiful walk under a perfect blue sky to Icart and around and down to Saints Harbour. I rarely find myself there, so took a several photographs. A slow walk back up the hill, listening to the water running down the valley and the birdsong, before returning to the hotel for a fast sandwich before catching the bus into town. This afternoon The Poetry Café, crammed full of poets -- Caroline Carver (who I rather like as a person) plus bus prize winners, and some locals I recognised. Some good interesting poetry going on, and I read a couple of poems too. Just over halfway through Lorraine and I realised we were about to be...

Kick off Up early and a light breakfast before jumping on the bus to go into town. From there walked north along the shining Belle Greve Bay till I reached the BBC buildings. Riccardo outside and we marched in shoulder to shoulder. A lovely chat with Jenny as usual and we had a good 25 minutes on the JKT show with her. She is a lovely broadcaster, and we got in a great plug for Defenders of Guernsey too. Jenny has been consistently fabulous to Richard and myself. It's great to be with Richard too, we are developing into something of double act. Into town then, and Richard and I sloped off to the hub, which was on Market Terrace, and looked great. Lots of people to chat to, and I met Gabi who edits Island Ink, for the first time. Lorraine arrived as I was mid networking fury. She and I snuck away to Dixneuf for French bistro where I consumed the French speciality fish and chips. Kick off for Richard and I, reading from A Guernsey Double in the hub. A well attended reading, and we ...

Departure Last day in Guernsey... For a month only thank God. After a leisurely breakfast, and a thorough read of the Guardian, Lorraine and I went on a walk from Moulin Huet to Jerbourg. Today hotter than ever, and the cliff path utterly beautiful. The tide was out a long way, and the gleaming sands and turquoise water looked fantastic. By the time we reached Jerbourg we were sunburned and thirsty, so we sensibly repaired to the Auberge. It is a wonderful restaurant and we looked out at the hazy sea and Herm dreaming across the water as we sipped a pair of cold Carlsbergs. Had some lovely food, topped off by Banoffee Pie Mess, whose ingredients were fresh bananas, crushed meringue, Guernsey cream, butterscotch sauce, toasted almonds and pecans with digestive biscuit ice cream. And by God it was yummy. I don't bother too much with puddings, but this was fantastic. Then a wending walk back to the hotel to pick up our cases. Lurked in the hotel bar, where I thanked Andrew the owner a...

Survival Skills Read a chunk of Skulduggery Pleasant and felt relieved that it is a long way away from Skelton Yawngrave. But it's good to know what the Derek Landy book is doing to overcome objections. Working on the Skelton short story, but my writing brain is slightly scrambled. Very hard work, but I am getting there. Off to the gym this afternoon, which was a good antidote to the slight frustration that was building up in me. Richard on BBC Radio Ulster this evening. He read his exellent poem Survival Skills from A Guernsey Double and plugged the Guernsey Literary Festival. Felt proud of him. Popped up the road to talk to Anton this evening, who has had an idea about pub maps. Also nice to hear a few tracks from The Hi Sides CD. Nice to hang out and chat, and when Anna had returned, we popped out for a mug of ale in The Good Companions . This now a nice pub, once having been a horrid one. Home and Lorraine was staying having been out with her singing Hullaballo pals. An earl...

Christmas commences Awake most of the night. Got up and read for a couple of hours before returning to bed. Was reading Richard's poems in A Guernsey Double again, they give me pleasure every time I do so. Received our third Amazon Purchase Order of the week this evening. Slowly but surely the book is selling beyond Guernsey. In the morning worked for an hour on my new Atlantis poem, while Lorraine snoozed the snooze of the virtuous. Then I ambled about reassembling my artificial Christmas tree with multicoloured lights and cat-enticing tinsel and baubles. Calliope squirming into boxes and leaping at the tree with wild-eyed delight. Sometimes my eyes greedily suck at a certain colour. When I worked at IBM at South Bank I craved the bright red in an abstract painting in the beige carpeted concrete stairwell. I would have to stop some days and drink in its redness, despite not liking the picture much. Now I'm hooked on the blue Christmas lights in North Street in Brighton, and t...

Full moon and foxes Woken up at an early hour by a crashing about and strange yelps in my front patch of garden. Calliope looking alarmed on the end of my bed. Leapt up as someone had recently kicked at some trellising. Imagine my surprise when I saw two urban* foxes on my doorstep. I lent out of my window clapping, and one made off through the, now clearly fox-made, hole in the trellising. I think the filthy beasts had the effrontery to be breeding too. On my doorstep. Needled three times this morning in an attempt to get blood. Nurse apologetic but kept on jabbin'. Luckily despite being a hysteric and a hypochondriac I seem to be okay about having blood taken. Then home working on my new poems for a bit before shooting off up to the smoke on a double mission. First off to the South Bank to drop of a brace of Guernsey Doubles into the National Poetry Library, and spend a couple of hours reading through the latest poetry magazines. Curiously heartened by the idea-free, emotionless...

Mum in hospital again Just sitting down gleefully to get on with some of my own writing when Mas called up to say that Mum was in hospital again. Put off my stroke by this. In the evening I spoke to him and he said they were hoping she would be home again in a day or so. I hope so. If not I will shoot back up to London to visit her. After spending hours staring at the screen, or reworking a story in a way that made it far worse, I went to the gym. Nice to be back there as paunch evil currently outranks knee evil. Then had a haircut and returned to faffed about ineffectually, diverted only by a card through the door from the police about an incident in the Twitten a couple of Saturday nights ago, when I had been snoozing happily in Lorraine's house. The Twitten is a magnet for ne'erdoewells. As I walked out to the postbox this afternoon, there was a woman a few yards away waiting to score. On returning I saw the dealer and the woman walking away briskly. They might as well be pa...

A perfect day for Vogon poetry Woke to a perfect day. This is my favourite time of year, and today, a sunny October day in Guernsey was a perfect temperature for walking for four hours. (My knee hurty and slightly swollen, but holding up). First I took myself to the graveyard to put some flowers on my Grandparent's grave. After buying some yellow carnations I discovered that the bowl in the gravestone, made out of some sort of metal, had rusted so that the bottom dropped of as I picked it up. Spent some time in the graveyard. I like graveyards, not in a ghoulish way, but they are so peaceful. I shared out some of the flowers to others I knew who are buried there. I walked down to Moulin Huet and took the cliff path. It is difficult to describe just how beautiful this was. The cliffs are reddish in patches where the bracken is turning, and the sea its usual turquoise and Prussian blue, with cloud shadows passing over, a warm sun and a cooling breeze. And as I walked my fingers becam...

Back to Guernsey Rushing about in the rain, with black bags of rubbish to the skip, and trying not to get cross with a random mad woman who told me that Calliope, who was waiting for me to return, wasn't happy and should be indoors. Flight to Guernsey was bumpy, the plane sandwiched between layers of cloud. Guernsey overcast and rainy when we arrived. I for one was grateful to touch down, despite the beautiful views of a grey and brooding Herm and Sark as we flew in. Met by Richard at the airport and we quickly repaired to the Farmhouse in his van with Rufus and Holly the dogs, for our now traditional fish and chips. As we were sipping our drinks and embarking on our gossipathon, Richard was called by a woman from Lexicon, one of the bookshops in St Peter Port having sold out of A Guernsey Double , and wanting more stock. This rather pleasing. Lovely chat with Richard along with the knife and forkwork. Pleased too that he understood my need for a bit of solitary cliff walking and ...

Wrong again? Gym again, that's three days in a row which must be a good thing, surely. A fortuitous meeting. Late in the afternoon, I took myself to a new cafe to work on a poem, but instead talked at length to the guys that run it. They are unusually receptive to new ideas, and the owner is a former event manager. I suggested that they put my half-hour play Wrong on at lunchtime as I am tweaking this for Beth and Mark to perform at the moment. Wrong is a play I wrote over 10 years ago, and did with Mindy as a one off, later some other folks performed it in Glasgow. It's a small farce: two people are bored, so decide to become actors and 'put the show on right here'. They discover an actor playing a corpse under their table. After a furious row, however, they accidentally kill this actor. 'Oh fuck, I've killed the corpse.' Then there is some corpse dragging and a resolution involving the corpse returning to life. The cafe guys were sold on it, and once I ca...

Kneedy Booed no geese today, allowing knees to recover. Curiously fragile after last night's accident, and wanted to sleep this afternoon. Although this occurred to me Pooterishly that it was a limp excuse. One still somewhat lumpy but I can walk, which is just as well as I am off to the smoke tomorrow. Working on poems about my American adventures, now that I can recollect those emotions in tranquility. Meanwhile Richard and I got our first Internet order for AGD (why have I not abbreviated 'A Guernsey Double' before?). The sound of rain as I type this. There is nothing cosier than the sound of rainfall when you are indoors. I love the sound of rain against glass, and wind moving through trees. It is beautiful and lucky to be able to hear these things.

Richard and me with JKT on the BBC After saying a fond farewell to Jane, Richard and I had a slow morning drinking coffee in the Victor Hugo cafe, and reading papers. We had been asked to bring any stories that were interesting to JKT's show in the afternoon. When we arrived we found that there were just us two on the show for two hours, and it turns out we never mentioned the news stories once. Amazing publicity, and really good fun. Turns out Jenny's grandparents were Mr and Mrs Samson who ran the corner shop on the Saints Road where my Grandmother had a part time job, and I was sent to for bits of last minute shopping, and packets of my Grandmother's Du Maurier fags. Really liked Jenny and Richard and I found it easy to chat to her. She asked me to let her know when I was back on the island, and was talking to Richard about being one of her main poetry contacts on the island. Listen to JKT, Richard and me here. Really professional person, who was also great fun. Obvious...

Book signing More leisurely day today, the island covered in low cloud, and rain. Richard and I slightly delicate (even for poets) this morning. Jane on surprisingly good form. Richard, retrieving the dogs from the kennel, dropped me in town and as the weather was not good, I sat in my usual cafe: the St Pierre by the old market, read my Guernsey Press (searching in vain for any mention of our book, weasels) and made some notes, even starting a poem about fog. Sipped cappuccinos, and sparkling water and trying to find a news item to discuss on the radio next week as I succumbed to a cheese and ham toastie. Met Richard again, looking spiffy in the Pollet and we went to the Guernsey Press shop were there was a fine display of A Guernsey Double in the shop window. Old family friend Betty Tostevin was waiting for us impatiently when we got in, who gave me a firm kiss and bought a book. Otherwise a rather quiet book signing. Left to reflect how our publicity for this bit had gone wrong. Ho...