under another sun

A much better night's sleep, and a welcome change of pace with two fun briefs to work on from mes amis in Paris. A quick chat with Val by phone. It was oddly nice to hear her -- something normalising about working with her again, after a bit of a break. One of briefs even required me to be funny, a bit of a first for me in animal health. This took up much of the day, interspersed with two short walks around Blaker's Park to think. Both times raindrops fell on me, although not enough to qualify as rain. After the wettest winter we are now by June 3rd, on the cusp of a drought. Although Lorraine said there were puddles in Bolney. Spoke to Mum who was setting up a FaceTime call with her old pal Mark Lewis. Finished Carrying the Fire . Fascinating book, and it makes me want to watch the Documentary Film Apollo 11, which was released last year and Toby said was amazing. I have some trailers on YouTube, it looks wonderful. The world you glimpse in the book, from an astronaut'...

Absolute bloody final edit of Magnificent Grace completed. But I will read it through again a couple of times before it is uploaded in September just to be sure. One of those moments, of no importance to anyone else, but nevertheless feels significant. I feel excited at the prospect of being able to think about something else tomorrow. After this was done I made off to the gym in London road and walked back through the park. I feel emptied out and uninspired. Home, and disinclined to stare at any more pages, blank or otherwise, I watched documentaries about space travel, what with it being 50 years since Apollo 11 blasted off for the moon. An entirely psychological tiredness over me this evening, and Lorraine, who was late due to the school show, drained too. To bed early.

Lorraine working on school reports all day. I walked down to the gym, and then had a relaxed day, reading and listening to the This is Horror podcast which I dip into from time to time. Also saw the last few overs of a truly remarkable ODI world cup final between England and New Zealand, which England won in fluky nail-biting style. Long gone are the days when you could watch cricket on TV without subscribing to Sky but today's match was on C4. I have been looking at photographs on the Nasa website about the first lunar landing. In the evening watched a documentary about Neil Armstrong. Can't get enough of this Apollo stuff at the moment. I was nine when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and remember the space race and The Vietnam War as being a constant news backdrop. I have an idea the family were on a  boat in the Hamble the day they touched down, but I may be mistaken. Below Brian waiting to biff people through the bannisters, and Neil Armstrong inside the lunar module hav...