under another sun

Up early and working on stuff to do with animal antibiotics for my French clients today. A short walk during the day, and slogging till I had to zoom off to Tunbridge Wells in the evening. Journey there wouldn't have been bad, other than the fact that I stupidly got off at Tonbridge which is two stops before Tunbridge Wells. Wandering about Tonbridge raging at Google Maps for not working properly, when in fact I was in the wrong town. Till I asked a man to put me straight. Arrived, breathlessly just in time to introduce the pamphlet launch for Jess's The Swell Telltale pamphlet, and take money from punters for a while. Jess is a bit of a force of nature and assembled a large audience, and got Robin and Sarah Abegail Morley and Mara Bergman to read with her. A pleasant enough evening, good to see Robin looking well. Hared off with Sarah at nine. A tiresome God-awful journey home via St Leonard's Warrior Square, but had a good long chat with Sarah. I taxied home well past ...

A day of unfoolish domestic contentment pottering about with Lorraine this morning and in the afternoon I met Sarah Barnsley a poet who teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London. Had a good chat in a cafe about poetry, writing and publishing. I really enjoyed talking to her. Robin was meant to join us, but cried off with a wretched cold but she and I chatted later. She is going through house moving stuff, and going through the standard frustrations with banks and so on. Probably prompting me to have anxiety dreams about property and selling and buying houses. Lorraine out tonight, and I spent a happy few hours working on some poems, reading poems and listening to the album Africa Speaks America Answers by Guy Warren on Spotify. At 9.00pm Avatar was on TV and I watched this, although stripped of the cinematic scale and 3D the thinness of the plot and dialogue was even more evident. Scandalous how much of Roger Dean's visual imagination was criminally imported wholesale and unac...

Up with the sparrows applying Graceful Green coloured paint. Basically grey with suggestion of green. It does however look elegant, next to white. Grown up is what it is. Then broke off at lunchtime as Beth arrived with Gary in a van, full of her London stuff. This rapidly disgorged, and we'd congratulated each other, on Gary's marriage and our house purchase, Gary drove off and Beth's stuff on the floor in her room. Lorraine working from home this afternoon, so all was cheery, despite this  review of The Nightwork . I understand there are a couple of other reviews forthcoming which may be a bit more favourable. But I'd rather get an indifferent review than none at all. In a very good mood, to The Nelson where I read some of poems in the Stanza Bonanza meeting. A very cheery evening, with lots of good poetry read. I tried a new poem primarily written to be performed callled A poet walks into a bar , which went down quite well, as well as a couple of others from The ...