under another sun

Up early and to tell the plumbers we don't want plastic. The stuff should be here on Monday, and the installation can resume, I hope, now into its third week. As yesterday, trying to work with little avail, while waiting for plumbers to get back to me and so on. A nice chat with Sonia, and I went for a walk for an hour and three quarters, and felt a good deal better for that. Listening to The Painted Veil   by W. Somerset Maugham. For some reason I have never read Maugham before. Orwell admired him, and I can see why. There is a coldness and clarity about his writing. Nice to be out and about, but still very hot. Thunder here and there in Southern England, not not a spot of rain here. It is now clearly a drought. Meanwhile Trump is in England. Felt bad I did not go to the protests in London, in some ways. But keyboard warrior that I am I put something on facebook and twitter. The ignorant narcissistic Trump was a disgrace, contradicting himself, in his usual modus operandi, ...

Another hot and atrociously frog-filled night. Had to get up twice to deal with hopping frogs and a monomaniac Calliope in a ghastly nocturnal struggle. The tiler was ringing on the doorbell at seven thirty, just as Lorraine was leaving, and I had fallen asleep really heavily again. Bleary chats with Alex the tiler, who just as he was getting to work spotted a hairline fracture in the shower tray, so this must be replaced before tiling can begin. A delay, but better than a leaking shower. I enjoyed the hiatus of quiet when it resumed. Worked at my bits of poems, list making and so on, although feeling  bushed all day. A walk in the afternoon, but very hot. Finished listening to Down and Out in London and Paris today by George Orwell. The difference was there were a few clouds in the sky, some quite dark, but no rain. The land is crying out for rain now, and our garden is shrivelling. The Brexit disaster drags on. I've tried not to fill this blog with remoaning. But today two ...

A blissful morning, without labouring or drilling etc. overhead. Got to grips with some good work, and feel at the end of the week, that I have evolved a progress plan, have identified several weaknesses in what I've been doing, and know what my next steps are. I feel as if I have turned a corner somehow. Because not having to be at the house, I set off for a walk. But I got no further than about three yards, when I started to chat to Clem, and soon found myself up on the roof looking at tiles, and firewalls, and discussing what to do about the fact that the cheeky bastard who had fixed our TV a couple of years ago, had done so by simply legging across the roofs and sticking it onto Clem's chimney. Also looked at lead flashing etc which has split on our roof and may cause damp in our bedroom. Seems I am destined for domestic doings. Clem however, is expert in all these kind of things, which is good. After this done, I resumed my walk, and walked for a couple of hours or mor...

Got up and made tea and took my still-recovering wifey tea and breakfast in bed. Got up in time to watch England play Panama in the world cup. Had heard people say that Panama were exactly the kind of team England struggle with,  but by half-time, and England up 5-0, the pundits were all saying how Panama were like a non-league team. In-ger-land ran out out winners 6-1, the first time that England had scored more than four goals in a world cup before. This done, and a salad and hummus lunch consumed, Lorraine had to turn to school work. I went out and did quite a long walk. I have now learned how to thread my route through nearby woods and cross over the M27 into a big wood, which I walked about in today for the first time, while listening to my audiobook of The Road To Wigan Pier , by George Orwell, and there is a quality to his writing that is brittler than I'd noticed before. A cloudless day, and I felt happy to be outside and walking in woods, and even enjoyed the more expo...