under another sun

Morning spent moving boxes from one room into another ready for the epic, if inelegantly-named, house poo coming up this week. This stressed me out really badly for some reason. Off in the afternoon to do more pleasant things, such as visit a few more open houses, and pop into see Janet's Open House again.  Ken still not well, and Janet understandably worried about him. Lorraine and I spent some time chatting with her. Also spoke to Huss. Then off to sit in Anton's garden where he barbecued a chicken in some species of elaborate barbecue smoker, with a recipe called beer butt chicken, as Anton slid a can of half-drunk beer up its butt as it was cooking. It was certainly moist and tasty. Sat outside eating salad and chicken, drinking a little and relaxing in the afternoon sun. A fine way to spend an afternoon.

I had a much needed day working on The Nightwork manuscript till around 4, and then sent the results to Rhona. This meant I missed The Children's Parade, which Lorraine and Mum saw, before Mum went off to Janet's place. Lorraine then met Betty and Rosie and went to Janet's open house. Anton also went there. Just as I'd finished work, Toby face timed me for a good chat. Then this done I made my way to the sun garden of the Battle of Trafalgar where Lorraine, Betty and Anton were sipping cold beers. We managed to move to a sunny spot and were then joined by Mum, who had enjoyed her day at Janet's place. Then Anton and I scooted home to collect Mum's things and met them all in The Cow at Seven Dials. Co-incidentally Ken, Janet and Huss had gone there too, so we had quite a gathering, which entirely compensated for the monastic scribing of the day. Mum had to catch a train home, so I walked her down and bade her a fond farewell before returning to The Cow. Had a...

Working from home today, feeling somewhat brighter. I really like working from home when Lorraine is with me. We walked off to Arkwrights at lunch, and bought some long mauvish alium flower heads which attracted Calliope a good deal. After the afternoon's work, and a quick doze for me, we drove to the station this evening to pick up mum, arriving with a bag of her cat head masks and her top hat on askew, having been out for a drink with her pal Pat, instead of going to watch a concert featuring Taverner which was their plan A. We took Mum straight to Janet & Ken's place, having previously loaded up the car with Mum's art. We dropped the stuff off there, pausing for a good deal of chatting with Janet, Ken and Huss. Nice to see Huss again. Janet was in the throes of getting stuff ready for her Diva open house, and Mum is going to spend the day with her tomorrow to help get things sorted out. Home again and a fairly early night, after Lorraine cooked some of her deli...

At last a good day's work on the book. Head full of Zen stuff as a consequence and did an ensō this morning, which I found rather fun, and instructive as I found myself writing about them. A very nice letter from Helen Moser my new pen friend in Germany, who has shown my poem about Heidegger to Dr Denker the head of the Heidegger archive close to where she works as a translator, and he liked it. At three, and having worked steadily since eight, the brain was empty. What better time then to zoom off to see Janet and Ken, via the Real Patisserie where I scored some incredibly delicious strawberry tarts. Long, wide ranging chat with Janet and Ken and Huss over aforementioned tarts and cups of tea. Home, and Lorraine was back home at a good time at last. We cooked and ate steamed veggies, fish and brown rice then as it was still light and the weather suddenly improving we sauntered around the park for an hour, watching a noisy jays versus rook war on the top of a large tree, and ...

Another poor night's sleep which at least meant that I was able to wake Lorraine up when she was having a nightmare that Beth's ex-boyfriend Mark had turned into a cannibal. Mum up rested and bright as a button. In contrast I felt somewhat jaded. A quorn sausage sandwich helped a good deal however. The weather hideously cold and rainy. Took mum to visit St Bartholomew's church which she liked, then into the North Laine and into a second hand bookshop, where I found a book on Imagination by Mary Warnock, and into Snooper's Paradise. We thought this is a kind of museum of household bric-a-brac. Then to the Giggling Squid, forking down some lovely thai food in a leisurely way. We popped into see The Blue Route by Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen, which was actually extremely impressive and strangely sea-like for a huge sculpture made from shirts. This made sense of the fact that the clock tower had been clothed in shirts for the last few weeks. Then into a bead shop...