under another sun

Back to work for many today. Lorraine and I, au contraire, late up. Rosie was doing half a day's training in a nearby school. Innis drove here there then brought Pippi round for morning coffee and watched us eat breakfast and joined in with a piece of toast. , But before Rosie arrived I thought it would be a good idea to pop out for a walk by the sea. Turns out that Storm Henk was in full effect. Absolutely soaking rain, and the sea roaring and the wind wild and very strong.  Innis and I were the only people by the sea for most of it, passing only one other hardy dog walker.   Got home had I had to change, and lend Innis a pair of walking trousers and a towel as we were soaked to the skin.  Innis then drove to pick up up Rosie at lunchtime, and Lorraine cooked lunch. Rosie and Innis both had covid over Christmas. A nice relaxed afternoon with the pair of them, and then a quiet evening indoors watching strange TV insulated from the rotten weather outside.   Below me ...

Up early and working on my poetry manuscript. I have had a good couple of days on this, which is very pleasing. Broke off for a cup of tea with Keith and caught up. He is very worried that everything seems so quiet on the work front. Lorraine had to zoom off to the opticians but was back in 25 minutes.  Greg and Dan hard at work and the red dining room, and the blue and white of the kitchen vast improvements. Lorraine and I also chose colours for the hallway, two colours called Jasmine Blush and Autumn Embrace... which is a bold autumnal orange below the dado rail. Colour is not to be shied away from and Lorraine and I are feeling really happy with bold choices. I mooched off to the Brewers the paint shop and got some tester paints (or tasters as Lorraine keeps calling them) and we slapped these onto sheets of paper and held them up in the right places. A bit of light gardening in the afternoon. Soberingly, I heard from the excellent new doctor who recommended I go on low dose of s...

Off today to Hove. We went to Taj to buy Anton-recommended ™  charcoal to use on our barbecue and popped into Waitrose. Then off to an artists open house in Blatchington Road, where Innis was showing some of his prints for the first time. These looked excellent, he is using his own photographs as a basis for the prints and is loving the process. His daughter Eve was also there. We'd not seen her since before Covid. Then home, and we assembled our barbecue (again, an Anton-recommended ™ product) where we downloaded an app, which had instructions. This built, and our barbecue sparked up, we sat in the back garden, down by the glasshouse to get the last of the sun, and barbecued basic things like halloumi, and chicken, sausages and large mushrooms and so on. Popped open a few tinnys too, and all we at outside feeling everything was well with our world.    Below Innis and some of his prints, and Lorraine watching the charcoal burning before we put it in the barbecue.

The Queen still dead, apparently, according to the BBC. Twenty-one years since 9/11. A happy day with Lorraine doing some packing, and in the late afternoon we drove over to Hove to see Rosie and Innis for a stroll along the sunny seafront (Rosie insisting that I as a dog-skeptic should hold Pippi's lead). Then we popped into The Better Half for a decent Sunday roast. We were sitting near the bar and when they brought out all the surplus roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings we were excellently placed to have some hobbit's second helpings. As usual, very nice to hang out with them. Innis sporting a majestically nautical beard at the moment.  Below a blurry picture of Rosie holding Pippi.

We got up and made a list of things that need fixing, which we counted as progress. Listening to music together, including Grace by Jeff Buckley. What a voice that guy had. Also more sleeping on the sofa. Lorraine beginning to claw back at the tiredness. Late afternoon we made off to Hove again, this time to drop in on Rosie and Innis. A few peanuts and refreshments before going down to the seaside. Walking along Hove lawns with Pippi sprinting about. Innis telling me that he is going to join the coastguard. We went to the bit of the beach that allows dogs, and and Rosie, Innis and I had a bit of a swim and a bob in the slightly wavy water. Lorraine and Pippi stuck to the shore, Lorraine wearing my panama hat and looking excellent in it. The water was warm after the heatwave. Back to Rosie and Innis, Lorraine and I mooched up the road to buy some more food and some beer and Rosie and Innis cooked and we had dinner together. They are off on a holiday from tomorrow. Lorraine and I drove...

Phew what a scorcher! Hottest day of the year so far. I got up early and slunk down through the par to the gym for 8am, which was different. Not sure if my body had woken up properly by then. Bumped into Clare Turner on the way back through the park. Did some recording with Robin this morning, edited this, then felt largely disinclined to do much more. Ended up having a snooze on the gold sofa, bought beers and later sat in the back garden with Innis, Rosie, Lorraine and Sam. Then a delivery from Wagamamas which we ate indoors. Relaxed banter, and always good to see those two.

Lorraine and I a bit of a day of recovery. A great weight lifting from my shoulders, but Lorraine finding it hard to relax. We went for a walk in Preston Park and had a coffee in the Rotunda cafe. Lorraine broke the shocking news that in her Stardew Valley game she has been having a relationship with a character in the game called called Eliott, a writer who lives on a beach and has lustrous ginger hair. They plan to get married.  Home and slouched about for a bit. From the kitchen saw a fox lurking happily in the back garden, and Calliope watching it fairly nonchalantly. Funny how both cats detest dogs, but they seem to rub along with foxes. I had a snooze in the afternoon and woke up to discover that we had been invited to have a quick drink at sundown on the beach at Hove.  Lorraine and I bussed over to Rosie and Innis and sauntered down to watch the sunset with a drink. Innis making based on stencils from his photographs at the moment, and they look really good. Back to th...

Up and slowly getting ready for the off. Breakfast with Rosie and Innis, with bacon and mushrooms and croissants which was all rather nice. Asking them about their early memories. Once packed, we left the Captain's Haven and made off north driving towards a rainbow which appeared to touch the road into the Forest. Had a bit of a squelchy rain-dodging scamper about through trees for a while with Pippi wearing a little coat and enjoying herself almost as much as Innis in his big wellies. From there to a pub, which turned out not to be open till the Summer, and Rosie had booked it online but the one she booked by the same name was near Bath. However a lovely woman, the future publican came out, and booked us a table at a nearby pub called The Gamekeeper, which was friendly and fixed us up nicely with Sunday roasts. Unexpected enthusiastic roaring at the France V Italy rugby game which was on in a big screen.  I enjoyed two pints of a lovely light beer called Horizon.  Fond farewe...

Up slowly to a large and tasty breakfast this morning. Innis and Rosie went off for a long walk, and Lorraine and I mooched happily about the town of Lymington, which had rather excellent shops. So excellent, in fact, that we bought an airplant in a glass bowl with arty decorations, and Lorraine discovered some nice clothes in a sale at Seasalt. We sat down on the waterfront for a while. Lots of boats with their wires chinking. I love that sound. Saw a cormorant eat what at the time I thought was an eel (but now think is a pipefish) which is something you don't see every day. The pipefish, taking umbrage at being eaten, wriggled about a great deal and the whole business took a couple of minutes. After this excitement, Lorraine shepherded me into a shop called Blueberry, where despite the irritations of world's most talkative salesperson ( people have worn that shirt on TV! etc.) I bought a really nice pale blue patterned shirt.  Home, and a cheeky nap, while Lorraine played Sta...

A day without freelance work, which was good. Although I had some bits and pieces to do. Lorraine being careful, and taking daily PCR tests, in case she picked up anything nasty from school. A walk in the Knepp Estate with Dawn and Paul, and Rosie and Innis, staying outside by way of avoiding Omicron. Paul told me he had links to the place, and knew the ecologist there and gave talks with them. A long walk for Lorraine, but it was fun. It is a large farm that has been rewilded and has cranes and beavers and ancient looking cattle with meaningful horns. Also large lakes.  Ate food outside on a little wall, where Lorraine quietly scoffed all the cheesy biscuits Rosie had brought with her. Paul and Dawn getting on very well, which is good to see.  The estate has an old eel house, which made me think of a poem by Janet Sutherland from her collection Home Farm 'pools where eels still hide trapped in a storage well,/somersaulting, tumbling and unbalancing.'

Rosie and Innis round this afternoon. Innis drove me off to Stanmer House. I'm really lucky as I am getting advice from an real photographer. I'm learning about using the shutter speed, and how depending on the speed a fountain -- as our example -- would look completely different. I did a snap on a fast speed, and caught all the droplets frozen in time. A longer exposure gave me lines of water. I took a few photos, but somehow managed to lose them probably by pressing the wrong button, but managed to take a few afterwards. Nice that Innis is finding explaining it to me really reminding him of why he loves photography too. Home in the min, where Rosie had been chatting to Lorraine, stretched out on the gold sofa. Rosie had come armed with bits of brownie, including a sort of hybrid mince pie brownie. Lorraine quite drained after chatting. She is still not anywhere near recovered. We watched Final Score and Match of the Day despite Chelsea losing a game, and surrendering the top ...

Lorraine a little better today, which is still a country mile away from being well. She is not going back to school this week, which is absolutely the correct decision. Beth came by this morning briefly. Just as Lorraine and I were getting up. One good thing about Lorraine being off work, is that I find myself getting up at 8, which seems decadent and late.  Spoke to Mum as I waited for a bus, heading off to the Peace Statue at Hove, where I met up with Innis. Very kindly, he has offered to lend me one of his nifty cameras, so I could try one out, and he lent be a book called, Read this if you want to take great photographs which I flipped through at home, and seems excellent.  Innis explained about proper cameras to me in a way that made more sense to me than it ever had. The relationship between the size of the aperture and shutter speed and so on. We sat at the cafe by drinking tea and having small bits of cake, and then we mooched up and down by the sea for some time. It ...

Mainly podcast recording with Robin and editing today. Off this evening to meet Innis who had tipped me off that Richard Powers was giving a talk at the Rialto theatre in Brighton. Met Innis in the Windmill pub of a cheeky first, and then went to the talk. Brilliant man, and a gifted communicator. He gave a 40 minute talk, semi autobiographical, about what had led him to writing his latest book, T he Bewilderment , which I was given by Rosie and Innis for my birthday. The Overstory , his previous Pulitzer prize winning novel, I have as an audiobook, and have only just started. He is two years older than me, so his recollections of reading SF as a kid, and thinking about space, and what the year 2000 might be like, in the sixties and seventies seemed very familiar to me. He was talking about life on earth, and of course about how precious this is. He also talked about the consequences or otherwise of finding life in the universe not on this planet. Interested and engaged audience who a...

Sam off today with Beth and James to see Glenice, Lorraine and I had a spontaneous kind of day. A spot of writing, as Lorraine ran her Star Dew Valley farm, then we wandered into town in the afternoon where I bought, after trying lots of shoes that didn't spark joy, a pair of winter shoes, from Schuh. A nice young guy helping us, I tried on a pair of Doc Martens, but it reminded me of kind of people who used to wear them in the 70s. I bought a clean, simple pair of brown shoes at a decent price. Picked up a pair of Sam's expensive boots from a cobbler at the bottom of the Laines, which were as good as new.    Lorraine and I made our way down to the Bottom's Rest and had a beer there, and were joined by Innis and Rosie, and we had some food. A cheery interlude of much chat. On the way home we were waiting for a bus (but ended up catching a taxi) Lorraine had been absentmindedly stroking my arm. A man appeared and asked how long we had been married, and said it was lovely to ...

I woke up hungover, after a night of enthusiastic drinking with Jade. Spent the first few hours of the day trying not to die. Then off to the tip with Lorraine, with loads of bags of garden cuttings and so on. Then to Sainsbury's where we bought a cheeky little cake for Jade, whose birthday it was today.  Our extremely expensive pepper mill came today from Peugeot. (An Anton recommendation obviously). In the evening Lorraine drove us off to Tottingham Manor Hotel, just the other side of the downs. Sam encountering a snail in the back seat. Here we met Beth and James and Innis and Rosie too and had a fine meal. A sadder and wiser man today, I had a single pint which I nursed like Florence Nightingale.  My main contribution to the night was telling everyone that our pepper mill had arrived and we had got it from the internet. I had to prompt everyone to ask me what site, and then I said Grindr . Beth told me the joke needed work. Good food, although not brought out with alacrity...

A peaceful morning, with me slipping off to buy some bread and having bacon and egg sandwiches and teas to start the day. A chat with Mum, organising a visit for this weekend. The glasses I had lost yesterday, and had pestered Rick around the corner about, as well as the Elizabethan Tandoori, turned up under my own duvet last night. The agency at it again today, saying they now only want Keith and I for next week, with a pencilled second week. I would rather not do any of it till next month, but its money. Lorraine and I off to Sussex Prairie Gardens, a few miles outside Brighton. I think it was the third time we had been there, once with Janet and Ken. By the time we reached it, the weather had become sunny and gorgeous, and the gardens were a riot of colourful flowers and plenty of butterflies. We ourselves followed the butterflies and drifted happily about pausing to look at a sort of Indian Bazaar, and to consume flapjacks and tea. Lorraine wrongheadedly ordered a savoury flapjack,...

Various bits and pieces to attend to this morning, and irritated by agency shenanigans over bookings today. Seems like I will have quite a bit of work on for the rest of the month, which I have to reluctantly accept. However, more cheerily, Lorraine and I drove off to the river to meet Innis and Rosie and little Pippi for a walk about. Innis  knows quite a lot about wildflowers as well as books and things. Lovely to see Rosie too and get Lorraine out for another walk in the country in her new walking shoes along the river bit that we saw the seal a while ago. No seal today however.  Below Innis, Lorraine and Rosie with Pippi in a fetching green coat. 

Into town this morning by bus, a spot of shopping and Lorraine had her second jab. Not without a struggle though, as before although she had been invited to attend there was some mismatch with the records from her GP and wasn't listed. An officious idiot made it difficult for a while, but Lorraine prevailed and came out jabbed. I am very pleased about this as school starts next week, and this Delta variant first identified in India is proving rather too communicable. We should be okay with our jabs however. We bussed back home and made ready for Rosie and Innis coming around. Actual hugging when the arrived, at tea time, and we had drinks and some food outside on the decking. I washed it and sorted it and laid a table cloth which a bird decorated. Nice to hang out in the back and chat. Lorraine cooking up a lovely flan (flan A) and salads and so on. Innis says he  has bought some boules and we hope to play with Anton next week.  It was a sunny evening and after Rosie and Innis...

 Lorraine and I off today to Steyning to hang out in the field behind Dawn's house on chairs with Dawn, Anton, Rosie and Innis. A cool but sunny day, and when I got back home Lorraine and I both had glowing red faces with sunburn. Just ace to be chatting with old friends again, celebrating Lorraine's birthday this week. Anton bought one of his impeccable Polish baked cheesecakes, and Rosie brought a delicious salad full of all manner of goodies, Dawn baked one of her famous flans shaped with rice instead of flour, and we drank a few drinks and generally caught up with one another. Anton said it was the furthest he had been outside Brighton for half a year.  It is the simple pleasures of seeing friends that is so important.  Innis and Anton discussing playing cards in enthusiastic detail.  Lovely village field, with people walking their dogs, and one neighbour who knew Dawn, coming to tell us about his newish dog in even more enthusiastic detail for at least ten minut...

So up this morning and chatted with Darren the roofer, who was able to do a good repair on the door lock, and would pay for the decking damage. That's the way to get customers and ensure people recommend him on. Nice chap.  Texts from Toby today. Toronto cases very high and full of variants -- a lockdown there. He is worried that Romy has to be so busy and go unjabbed.  Not long after, the two cheery Geordie roofer lads came to finish off the job, and leaving Sam with them,  Lorraine, Jade and I hopped in the car and made off to the River Adur, a little nearby river where we found a parking spot and met Rosie and Innis and went for a walk along the riverbank and had a bit of a picnic. Great to see them both, who were seeming okay, although it has been a  long hard winter of discontent for everyone I think. Jade happy to talk to Rosie and Innis, as new people. A seal popped up from the water bold as brass which Rosie saw first. Obviously by the time I had gathered my ...