under another sun

An old haunt Shallow sleep. Woke for the third night in a row at exactly 4:10am. Very tired by noon again. Nowhere near such a fluent day's work on bipolar mania. Managed however, to sneak away at lunch into a room and find a comfortable seat and listen to a guided meditation tape which rebooted me enough to carry on. I can't remember enjoying listening to it more. Slumped on an butter yellow bean chair cube thing, wedged into the corner of a meeting room. Eccentric, moi? I am weirdly twitchy at the moment, but nothing that can be particularly pinned to anything, which is annoying. Bullying the French clients to get them to pay for a day they owe me in January. I hate having to be objectionable just to get the money I'm owed. Home some time after eight. House cold. Calliope tetchy. I bought a self-harming pizza from M&S and ate it, not being bothered to cook fresh food. Mum sent me pictures of a Jaguar she is making. Really good. Now: a hotwater bottle, an early night...

Tipping To Glamoursmith again today. Sunny morning, train chugging through a countryside that's on the cusp of burgeoning. Listening to Tolkein and feeling reasonably cheery. Once in Hammersmith , walking through Magravine graveyard which was full of spring flowers among the tipping angles of its headstones. Enjoyed working with Keith today. Had lots of ideas and quite a few mad laughs about things. The new creative director seems quite good, if short on laughs, and reminds me of the self-portraits of Van Gogh . Also managed to pop into my old agency to 'discuss' my payments. The poor girl I was going to talk to actually hid by the photocopier when I arrived, and was grassed up by someone who happened to be standing there. Some of what they owe may be paid this week if I am to believe what I am told. I am not sure I do. Went for a walk into Hammersmith at lunch, and felt as if I were saying goodbye to it. So many threads of my life have been woven into that stretch of W...

Morlock moments Woken by Calliope at 5 this morning. Atrocious weasel falling off the window ledge behind the blind and scrabbling for what seemed ages on the edge of the radiator, like a feline Buster Keaton. Up, showered and off to London, then listening to my Girl who played with fire audiobook again. Bought a cup of tea on the train and it was execrable, necessitating an undignified pursuit of the tea man, to get a new one without rancid milk. Then into the tube like a Morlock. Once out of the tube, and walking through Magravine Cemetery (a familiar haunt) I talked to the printer and to Richard, and was overcome by a wave of cheeriness on the way to work. Working on concepts for an HIV pitch with a freelance art director called Andy, who is perfectly pleasant. For some reason we found ourselves in an arduous and unproductive slog through the day, with me developing quite a throbby headache making it even more difficult to concentrate. We are already we are behind schedule. Not hel...

A punchable savior Just before I woke up, I had a nightmare that I was back at my agency full time. I'm having to contend with Groundhog Day feelings about being there. But once I just deal with it for what it is: an excellent bit of freelance, and a chance to see some old friends, it is actually pretty enjoyable. On the train listening to the final volume of the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. An Anton recommendation, a good fantasy, with excellent writing - with the last book being by far the best plotted in my opinion. However it almost killed me: run over by a bus outside Victoria station while listening to my headphones. An employee of the bus company was roaring Bus! at me. I was looking at him vaguely to my left wondering why he was shouting, as the bus loomed on my right. Happily I stopped shortly before squashing commenced. I sincerely thanked him, but then he began shaking his head and enlarging on what an idiot I was, and pretty soon I felt like punching my savio...

The heat is on I'm hoping The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's findings actually prompt some concerted action in the world. Will it get major governments (like the US) to admit climate change is happening? All the rest of us have to do is look out into the nearest garden. Below is a shot taken in Magravine Cemetery this morning of spring bulbs in full bloom. They started in January - the first full month of winter . I find it very disturbing. I was overheating too. Arrived early to do some urgent work to discover I had been locked out of all the computer systems for not completing my timesheets. They had been completed and I had made special efforts the day before so I wouldn't be locked out. Wasted an hour shouting at people, making phone calls and finally exploding with rage until it was sorted. Then, racing against time, I lost the same piece of copy twice due a software crash. Then after completely writing it from scratch the for the second time, the origina...