under another sun

Woke refreshed, with more movement in the infernal neck. Optimism and joie de vivre which had been AWOL for the last week or so were back. Worked steadily and with a sense of there actually being light at the end of the tunnel. Basic Peter Kenny survival skills flooding back, like focusing on the job at hand and the ability to distance myself from the stuff I was doing. Why is it that I have relearn the same life lessons time and again? A productive, hard-working day, and took three walks. A chat with Matty this afternoon too - relieved to learn he is on the same page as I am about the work we've been doing. Also discussing with Betty how to do first auditions for the play next week. Last walk was just before I cooked supper, and was I oblivious to the fact a man was being arrested near the bottom of Beaky Villas a few hundred yards away for waving a gun around. No shots fired apparently. On my walks today listening to the last bits of Life by Keith Richards. Amused by the in...

In the attempt to stave off gloom, attempting to get a grip. Principally by writing lists and taking every opportunity to go out for a walk, in-between bouts of work, while listening to my Keith Richards audiobook about drugs and music man. Managed somehow to do something to my neck which seized up during the course of the afternoon and evening to the point I could barely move it. Read a little of Loop of Jade poems by Sarah Howe just to make sure I did something that didn't suck. Monday. Bah.

Pressing on, rewriting brochures, tweaking a script, talking to Dave about scamps etc. Marginally more optimistic, with no crisis and able to glimpse the end of the week. As Lorraine was at a headteacher's conference & Beth was out I scored myself some fish and chips, then went for a walk down to the sea and along the seafront under the iSore and along a bit. Good to breath some air after having been manacled to my desk for the last few days. Dark and blowy, but not very cold. Listening to the mildly-diverting debaucheries of Keith Richards as I walked. Will go with Mum to Diane's funeral in a fortnight, I'd like to pay my respects and good to be with Mum there too. Facebooked by Nicki Rose, or Ricki Nose as Reuben, First Matie and I called her quite often, who'd found a farewell poem I'd written her a frightening 21 years ago. It was based on Lake Isle of Innisfree by Yeats for some reason. Nicki was leaving IBM to work for Walt Disney: "You will arise...

A day of dragging things about the house, down to the dungeon or up to the spare room in preparation for carpet laying next week. And lots of discussion about furniture too. Lorraine working, and me attempting to catch up with some of the backlog of my own work. Feeling a bit frustrated that everything is on hold at the moment. But managed to at least enter a poetry competition. Waiting for the pair of numpties who contacted us about collecting the shelves to collect them. They didn't, and accused us of being shitty when we asked them why they hadn't turned up. Nice chats with Mum, and with Toby too who was at Deviation Road. Managed to say hi and have brief chats with Joan and Dick and Romy too, and glimpse out of the windows at a snowy Deviation Road. They need to get Star Trek beaming sorted. Would have been fabulous to beam over for a chat. Listening in snatches to the audiobook of  A Life by Keith Richards (and ghostwritten by James Fox) which is interesting. And wha...