under another sun

Off to the gym for the first time since the Monday of the previous week. Otherwise, did work on The Second Kind of Darkness , and then sorted out some facts and figures for the accountant. I am feeling like finishing my story is somehow like the orbit of some slow moving planet. I have learned lots through the process. The buddhist in me feels that I shouldn't be attached to outcomes, just focus on the job at hand. This is quite hard when you've been working on something off and on for so long. The story feels like the tip of the iceberg, in that I have loads of plot lines in my head for the characters in it. Anyhow, Lorraine, Rosie and Dawn, all of whom work with children of the target age and have bags of expertise in literacy and children's books, are going to read it for me next. Mandy in NZ will read it too. And anyone else who fancies it really. A spot of anxious cat wrangling with Calliope this afternoon. I had to squirt two lots of liquid medications into her mo...

Lorraine and I had a poorish night’s sleep being somewhat overtired. The disorientated cats waking us up periodically, with Brian springing up from the side of the bed into Lorraine’s face twice in the night. Can’t remember feeling as happy as I did this morning. Apart from the sheer pleasure of moving in to the house Lorraine and I have bought together, there is the unadulterated joy of knowing that the years of property-related uncertainty, delay and frustration have at last ended. We live here. And Betty is delighted too. After her uncertainty about where she was living, she now knows she has a solid foundation and home to flourish out from. Very tired but skipping about cheerily. A bit of a survey this morning, and prioritising what needs to be done. The bobbly biscuit coloured wallpaper needs to go pronto. The colour scheme in much of the house is of discordant beiges. Other people's colour sense baffles me sometimes. Pat and Peter were due to arrive at lunchtime with a...

Lorraine up early, and me not much later. Off to London for a one-day week, which makes it altogether less frightening. A mooch about at lunchtime, before ducking into Blackwells browsing happily and buying a book by Jean Baudrillard called Passwords , to continue my occasional skirmishes with recent continental philosophy. I seem to be buying hard copies of things again. I quite like reading real books, and read them faster than I listen to them. Left the office as it started teeming and I scurried onto a Victoria bound bus. The sky immense and foreboding as the train trundled over the Thames. Listening to podcasts and browsing Baudrillard and reading bits of  The Sound and the Fury  on the train before I arrived in a sunny Brighton. Lorraine out singing in the choir, where they are doing a version of Happy by Pharrell Williams, the pop tune of the year. Below Seven dials in London in a sunny interlude at lunchtime.