under another sun

Up early working for an hour or so on the job I am doing with Keith and Pat, it only being 8:30 I took a quick turn around Blaker's park, before settling down to work, with an impish Keith in a window on my screen. Managed to nip out for few subsequent strolls around the park during the day, even if it were just ten minutes missing the extremely heavy rain in the afternoon. Really it is easier if anything, working like this. Keith and I discuss the concepts and work through them as if we were face to face, and once Keith starts mocking them up, we see the same screen as he's doing it and I can tweak lines etc. and grow the concept together in real time, just like you would if you were physically sitting next to one another.  It all helps. A virtual meeting with Carolyn, Pat and a pleasant planner in the US this afternoon, where Keith and I presented the work. In other news I received the lovely print of a pencil drawing of Bob Marley from Ellie. I was her guinea pig, to see if ...

A misty morning so I played  Misty Morning   by Bob Marley on my phone as Lorraine and I were getting up. Lyrics seemed very apposite. A healthy porridge breakfast and then off to a garden centre to buy a large pot to plant the magnolia tree Anton bought for us. We mixed bought compost with that from our very own composter. Good to have created chocolatey coloured compost from all those peelings and clippings. Oddly good to get my hands muddy. The ground despite us being chalky here and on the side of a hill quite waterlogged. The plants confused due to El Niño and global warming. A large fox poo outside the house, caused by wanton vulpine carelessness. A quiet afternoon. Lorraine cooked the most amazing chicken pie tonight. Pie perfection. My wife has many talents. Pies are just one. Speaking to Janet, Mum and Toby this afternoon. Toby in Ottowa airport. Felling well rid of January. Looking to get a grip, starting tomorrow.

Managed to work on the business book for some time, which seemed the first time I've had a chance to focus on it properly. At least until Sonia came. Apparently Sonia is buying a new house and getting married in August. Long chat with Matty boy, who was in a German Taxi, who phoned to congratulate L and I, and then had a really interesting conversation about the theory of marketing. Winnowed out into the outside world later in the afternoon to buy salady things and a pair of sunglasses and look at Bob Marley CDs. I am in a full blown Bobathon at the moment. If it isn't Bob Marley I don't want to listen to it. Been listening to early recordings produced by Lee Scratch Perry. Rather splendid and undilutedly Jamaican. Took me back thirty years to when I was at the height of my Bob Marley craze. His death in May 1981 meant at least as much to me than that of John Lennon who died five months earlier. Late in the day I was invited to work up in Tavistock Square tomorrow. Sp...