under another sun

Sleep sponge Woke up at 5 o'clock thanks to that foul MSG. Got up and worked for an hour, cleverly fed Calliope and on returning to bed was rewarded with an untroubled sleep in till ten. Also slept in the afternoon for over an hour. I am a sleep sponge. Bumped Doctor's appointment to Monday: but my knee is swollen and hurting, other joints aching and I feel ancient. I want to plop into one of those science fiction tanks full of a greenish gel and be attached to a bioengineered umbilicus. A few weeks later your broken body is pulled out of the gloop, and you find yourself renewed and improbably muscular. Then you are sent off to battle a race of huge warlike insects, and end up having your face injected by some disgusting ovipositor from the insect's body. Some hours later your comrades salvage your half-dead remains and you are returned to the gloop, but not before eggs have been scooped out in the nick of time from your head. Maybe the gel tank isn't the answer. Erm......

On reflection Awake unnecessarily early. Made the best of it by getting on right away with some French work. Writing about spas in Southern France was a refreshing change from blood clots. After, I made chicken and vegetable soup and bought bread and looked blearily at my backlog of correspondence and admin and decided that I wasn't man enough for the job. Apart from a note to Richard and one or two other bits, I did nothing. Instead I slept peacefully for more than two hours in the afternoon and read the paper. Absolute luxury. Early evening, I met Matt in The Basketmakers. We made something of a breakthrough in the doubles project and we are now clearer about how it should be staged, we're thinking lots of mirrors and splintered reflections, the instruments to be used etc. Will do it in next year's festival, and we are going to look at venues this weekend. Matt wanting to get home and start writing, which was good to see. Less worthily, I took myself for a plate of MSG in...