under another sun

Up early after an utterly wretched night's sleep. But gradually got over it, fixing up a bean jar which cooked pleasantly all day, sending its aromatic fingers up to my study. Bet out this evening, but Lorraine and I tucked into a bowlful with some chewy brown bread and, in my case, lots of white pepper. Delicious. I made it with beef this time. A lovely walk at lunchtime down to Waterstones, where I spent the book token Anne had given me for my birthday. Enjoyed browsing, and brought paperback collections of short stories by Richard Matheson, Franz Kafka and Danilo Kiš. Then I sauntered down to the sea, which was calmer than I have seen it for some time. Beautiful day. Walked back too, and through the park. One of those days in which it is good to be alive. Worked on my stories, Snowfall is my new one, and it is going very well. I also found a story I had written back in the 80s called Silverfish! -- this is not really fixable as it is, but some of the ideas are good and weird...

Thanks to Lorraine this morning calling up the plumbers, it turns out that work will resume next Monday. So a day of peace. Spoke to Mum today, and the neighbours next door with the concrete dogs, and increasingly mad wall building and cat shouting antics, have a sold sign on their for sale board outside their house. This a generally excellent thing. A strange day's work, false starts in my newly freed up morning, but I had a good idea in the late afternoon which turned it into quite a good day. Went for a walk into town, and picked up Lorraine's watch from having a new battery in it, and walked onto the pier, now with a new sign on it reverting to its original name, Brighton Palace Pier. Another scorcher of course. Loads of people in the water, many fully clothed oddly, and it put me in mind of an L.S. Lowry picture a bit.