under another sun

More relaxed for parts of the day than I have felt in a long time. Lorraine and I after breakfast, sauntered down to the beach and rented a couple of sunbeds and based ourselves by the glassy sea for the day. We bought spanakopita pies for lunch, Lorraine brought a noodle for swimming, and I spent much of the afternoon snorkelling in what is probably the best place I have ever been for it. The bay's mix of sand, pebbles, stones, rocks and fields of seagrass create a perfect environment for a variety of fish. I saw yet another octopus today, slinking across the seabed, and probing a long tentacle into a crack before pulling itself in and the eyes and body exactly mimicking the rock it was hiding in. So many moments of beauty, and although the water is distinctly cooler (and there are streams of cold fresh water entering the bay under the surface that make the water look blurry). There are a few short wooden jetties, on metal legs, that poke into the water, and the one in deepest wat...

Lorraine and I flew back from Cephalonia, Kefallonia, Kefalonia or Kefallina depending on where you read it. In our last morning we quickly packed, and then slipped into the glassy sea, which was just a few steps from our door, and snorkelled around the harbour bay of Assos (or Asos). For two weeks we had swum and snorkelled every day, in what was something like a vast aquarium. There were a couple of dozen varieties of fish: highly coloured ornate wrasse and rainbow wrasse,  blennies, gold striped dreamfish  that can give you hallucinations if you eat them, dark little fork tailed damselfish, shoals of mullet and sand smelts, parrotfish, two banded bream, saddled bream, little yellow finned annular bream, tigerish painted combers, garfish (which I always like to see as it takes me back to fishing in Guernsey where they are called longnose) and dark little fork-tailed damselfish. These latter when very young, and viewed by certain lights glowed violet. There were hand sized ...

Kissed Lorraine near Preston Park station, then into London, reading. I had randomly picked up Canal Dreams by Iain Banks which I have carried in boxes from house to house for years. Now was the time I would finally read it. After 40 minutes I decided I hated it. The characters were cardboard, the writing useless and I didn't care what happened in this story, just as long as I didn't have to keep reading it. I gave it a good go though. Interesting how good writers can write terrible books sometimes, I googled it afterwards, and it seems that Banks thought it was his worst novel. I've only read the Wasp Factory , which while I thought was only okay, it was much better than this Canal Dreams . I had selected it based on my current spate of canal mooching. Into work, and a reasonable pace of things today, rather than yesterday's machine-like slog. A walk at lunchtime, first to the Smiths in Paddington station and a futile search for something decent to read. Then I walk...

Much of the day given over to fish business, prompted by an aquarium fail during the week. Draining and moving one tank, having caught the fish, put them in bags and floated them in the other tank, washing gravel for the new tank (which in itself took over an hour) planting, treating the water to remove harmful chemicals, seed in helpful bacteria, plant promoting chemicals, and ph adjustments, reintroducing fish and so on. L and I off to a late showing of 'Looper' at the Duke of York's picture house. An entertaining time travel yarn, which we, sat in the balcony with a drink, definitely enjoyed. Ticked the shooting with guns/fighty box, the SciFi box, the creepy kid box, tough sexy women box, the existential we're all trapped in life box, and the  child is father of the man  box. Good fun.

Pasties and fools Wide awake at 6:30am and eventually I got dressed and after leaving a note for Mel and Craig and headed back to Brighton. Beautiful morning, and was home a little before ten enjoying the sunny trundle through the countryside, reading the paper. The Observer today carried an excellent April Fool article that lead singer of the famously drug-fuelled Happy Mondays, Shaun Ryder, was now an adviser to the Tory Party. After breakfast with Lorraine and Betty, I simply went back to bed. Marvelling at the terrible week Prime Minister David Cameron has had. One strand of the debacle (which also involves sleasily selling access to the PM at Number 10 for donors to the Tory Party who are then able to influence policy) revolves around the humble cornish pasty. The government has decided to slap tax on hot food, so a man buying a hot pasty will pay 20% more for a hot pasty than a cold one. The (not just April) fool then claimed that he liked pasties, and bought one at York train st...

Fish business and rehearsals Calliope tearing around the room like a mad thing in the night with her claws out. In the morning at last being able to get down to moving boxes around like fury. Lorraine and I dervishing about in the morning, as Betty and Mark sat quietly on the gold sofa. Then off to the Twitten to rescue the fishes. Lengthy business of draining the tank and bagging up all of the fish, pausing only to cope with a leaking bag, emptying gravel and stones into buckets. Then to transport cabinet and tank and fishes to the Old Church Hall. Everyone arrived safely, and we set up the tank and the fish all alive and accounted for a few hours later when released back into the water. Callum arrived and Beth Mark and Callum began a very noisy rehearsal upstairs. So Lorraine drove us up to the fish shop where I bought some new plants, and the tank looks well in its new environment. Fatty Basil one of the tabby cats, is a great fish fancier and is well pleased. Home and...

Fish faces Up this morning with the words for the sung refrain in This Concert... in my head, sparked by a half remembered line of Dante. Winged this off to Matt. I had been drawing a blank on this for two weeks, and then it emerged fully formed in minutes. Hope he likes it. After a quorn sausage sandwich, a long walk with Lorraine along the seafront, the sea still calm, but it was cold and face chilling. And it was good to let Lorraine off the leash. We paused to buy a very reasonably priced fillet of fish from the local fishmongers next to the Fishing Museum on the seafront: the vestige of the local fishing industry. While Lorraine was discussing recipes with the fishmonger, I was distracted bya tank full of edible crabs hunched into corners. But he had some good fish: flatfish, mackerel, herring, a couple of big cod and two morose gurnard on the slab. After a reviving coffee, and blueberry muffin in my magic cafe, a mooch in Brighton, bumping into Anton in Resident records, who had...