under another sun

Up early with Lorraine, and walked her to the station to start the long journey to Leuchars up in Fife where she would be collected by Jade. Felt sad to be saying goodbye at the station even for just a few days. Nipped around to the supermarket and then back. A nice bright day however. To sort the kitchen out, change the cat litter, read poems by Christina Rossetti, and listened to someone reading Goblin Market her longish and most famous poem on YouTube while  Robert the herring gull was trying to get in again. I had the back door open.  Its original title was going to be A Peep at the Goblins , which seems to me to be hilarious. Lively stuff, and I talked about it in the podcast. I was also waiting for a man to measure up the window and the catflap so a hole could be cut in it, to arrive. He, naturally, did not turn up. A bit of a pane.  In the afternoon more recording with Robin. Then I set out for a walk for an hour and a half just as it was getting dark. Robin texte...

Up early because Amanda the painting and decorating lady was here today to paint our front room.  Meanwhile I did a couple of hours editing on the podcast interview with Ian McMillan before I sent it towards Robin's ears this afternoon.  Then off shopping with Lorraine in Seaford, buying some green candles to go in our red dining room, and a present for Penny and then going to the fabric shop with the long suffering Gold Sofa seat covers and arranging to have them refilled, at a fairly hefty cost -- but nothing compared to a new sofa.  I love my gold sofa. Then to walk by the sea, extremely hot for October, apart from it signalling the end of the world, it was rather lovely.   Then the supermarket. This new Zoe way of eating is weird, you don't get hungry but I find myself instead getting hangry and snappy if I haven't eaten. We got home at three and devoured smoked mackerel.   Later Lorraine cooked a veggie lasagne, which included Kenny Farm harvests. We h...

A Thanksgiving Started the day learning that my poem A sparrow at 30,000 feet will be in the first issue of a new magazine from Guernsey called Written In. The editors have also kept hold of other poems to use them in subsequent issues, so this is all good. It is important to me to have work appear in Guernsey. Also I recieved a note from Joan who has been talking to Dick about my megalithic find, (see previous entry) and thinks it is a stone age scraper used to scrape hair and fat off hides. He was familiar with this instrument because he just read a book dealing with the prehistoric natives of Ontario. I have sent my jpegs off to a local museum to see if they make anything of it, or simply tell me it is a piece of stone. Then up to Edgware for Mason's tradional late Thanksgiving supper. A cheerful gathering there, with Tanya and Robert, Ben and Poppy (over from Guernsey) and Diane who is looking remarkably good after her recent radiotherapy treatment. Nice to fork into some turk...