under another sun

An early start at the poetic coalface. Then breakfast with Lorraine, and she went off to do Story Time. Sylwia here, very cheery she is. And Lorraine and her always kiss when she comes in. I melted away to the gym, hoping to get some physical jerks in before it got too hot. En route I called in at Melissa's to hand her a sketch back. I had daubed a D minus watercolour on a piece of paper she'd handed me, to discover  as I turned it over, I found there a sketch of a dog called Benji, a much loved hound Melissa has been commissioned to do a painting of it. Then bumped into Delores on the way to the gym, as she was entering the bicycle shop 'Hello darlings!'  I spent some time in the gym, then sloped home feeling cheery, and end of term-ish.  Lorraine and I made off to the Boot where we met, Steve, Guy and Barbara, and Yvonne. Brian on a pilgrimage walk with his pal ending up at Canterbury. God knows what his knees will be like. Finding myself enjoying the company of Guy a...

Off this morning to another masterclass this morning. Melissa was trying to shake up how we approached drawing. The best exercise for me was covering a piece of paper with charcoal and then using an eraser to rub out and reveal form. While not fabulous, I quite like the picture down below where I did that. There was a straightforward paint the life figure it with a watercolour and brush - mine was pretty poor, then another go with pastels -- we were given three each of bright colours. Another poor effort for me. Then it was drawing with ink. I was expecting to be quite good at this, but the ink pen was the old dipping sort, which dried up after making a line of two centimetres. Then I found myself having a go with a gull feather that had been turned into a pen, which produced great splotches of ink. These Melissa had collected, much to her husband's disgust, from the streets of Seaford. This gave me a new found interest in the herring gulls on our roof. If I collected their feather...

Seeking tranquility today and to get myself in the right frame of mind for The Nightwork pamphlet launch this evening. After running through what I had intended to read, I felt the Kenny pipes rasping somewhat as my throat has been sore for a few days. I drank loads of water, however, and this seemed to do the trick and it was much improved by the evening, and Beth suggested emergency remedies of steam baths etc. if it got serious. Like the literary Titan I am, I spent my afternoon waiting for a small roofer, who arrived late and sporting many tattoos of boxers and a humorous hinge in the crease of his arm. Making a meal of the work, he clambered about on the roof and hammered at the lead flashing and did other apparently helpful things 'for nothing'. These he described in tiresome detail. He relieved me of a decent chunk of cash, but did not receive the tip he also requested. Worse, he garbled and looked at his son when he was talking to me so I could only undersand part of...

A surprisingly sunny and lovely day in Brighton. And shortly after chatting with Sonia, I took myself to Starbucks to work there for a couple of hours over an Americano. Worked well today, there and on returning home. In the late afternoon I went to The Foundry where I met Mark and Carole and their daughter Melissa. A quick drink, before Melissa and I got our heads together to talk about a speech she had to give at a funeral.  An interesting chat, she is studying philosophy and is intelligent, thoughtful and empathetic and all round a great credit to her parents. We talked about death and mourning and I helped her organise her thoughts, rather in the way I had with Beth for her play a few weeks ago. Sometimes it is refreshing to fast forward through the smalltalk onto the real stuff. Dropped home by Mark and Carole, and a quiet night in with my lovely who went to work, but is still slowly recovering. We made a vegetarian shepherds pie, which was rather good and we tucked happil...