under another sun

A productive day. Feeling as if it were the first day of the rest of my life. Up with Lorraine, who after breakfast went off to Caroline's and did lots of exercise. I went to my desk and got busy, sent off an invoice, paid my tax, recorded with Robin, and had a good conversation about the pod, the year and so on. I also chased up a book that had been supposed to have been sent me for next week's interview and received a PDF by return. Began editing what I had recorded with Robin this morning. Lorraine in the garden playing with streamers after she returned despite it being very cold, After lunch with Lorraine: incredibly healthy stuff of course... Rocket leaves grown in our garden, avocado, some feta, cucumber, tomato, beetroot, alfalfa shoots and a very thin slice of seedy sourdough loaf.  I went for a walk for an hour and a half, crisp cold day but barely a cloud in the sky, so beautiful and mood enhancing too. On my return, we did a bit of prep on the large bathroom, before ...

A cheery day. Woke up feeling as if a cloud had lifted. Lorraine and I started peeling old wallpaper from the big bathroom. Much of the bathroom is tiled, but there is a strip of biscuit coloured wallpaper running around the room. We are replacing this with a fairly muted olive green which will nicely bring out the colours of the tiles.   In the afternoon we made our way to Patrick and Adele's house and spent the next several hours reading aloud Richard The Second, the Shakespeare play. I had never read this before, and I really enjoyed it. Was a play about a weak king who, rather mysteriously, gives up his throne without a fight. We sat about eating snacks and eventually having a couple of drinks while doing this in an array of silly voices attempting to help the parts sound different. Adele slipping in and out of a Birmingham accent into a few others.  Lorraine and I were invited up to Patrick's music studio and we heard the latest version of Shiny Shoes, which he had been w...