under another sun

Last three days, after Saturday's excitements were spent close to our hotel on Skala Potamia. The resort seemed less busy in the last week.  Annoyingly I developed a summer cold, which became a chest infection.  However as our days were spent underneath beach umbrellas reading and going for the occasional snorkel it didn't spoil anything and we were winding down very well by now, dreaming on our sunbeds and with the wooded arms of the land stretching out either side of the bay, and the mountains behind. Reprehensibly, we managed to put on several kilos. Not a great place for keeping to a diet. We also got to know some of the new guests, a likeable couple called Dave and Jeanette knew my old school friend Mike Longman. Dave and Mike had been in the police together. Another was a recently-widowed woman in her 40s who worked in education called Penny. Fell in with these a bit and sat in the hotel bar with them from time to time, being served by a pleasant Englishwoman called Su...

Up after a good night's sleep in Edgware. Downstairs for coffee and toast with Mum and Mas, discussing with Mas what he might do about his news that he is now borderline diabetic. A bit more exercise seems the thing. Not that Mum hasn't been telling him that for the last decade. Mum and I took a quick stroll around her garden, seeing as gardens are the new thing. Snuffly, but feeling far brighter than yesterday morning, and keen to get on with stuff. Mum drove me off to Mill Hill, and I began a ghastly three hour journey home, due to all kinds of cancellations and other stuff to dreary to go into. I was uncharacteristically philosophical as I knew there would be problems, and used the time to catch up on podcasts and listen to a bit of the audiobook of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. Walked home from Brighton Station and found Lorraine and Betty at home. Beth just off to do some drama teaching to children, and Lorraine working from home writing her reports. I worked for some tim...

Imagine My week began to take shape today. And by simply putting my computer into sleep mode, rather than turning it off, I have been able to use it. The Dell engineer is now booked, I re-read Betty the Spacegirl , which has a dark patch towards the end, and I have decided I want to retain this unless in rehearsal it gets too much. I also paid my musician amigos. Looking forward to being able to actually hear what we did. Not having done so or begun the edit feels anti-climactic. To the gym today, but feeling jaded and yearning to spread my wings. I need a holiday. Excellent TV tonight: an well-adapted The Night Watch by Sarah Waters on BBC, followed by Imagine , a film about John Lennon's last few years in New York. He was a mess, but he got his act together in the end and discovered a kind of peace before he was shot.

All work Up to the smoke this morning again, like some milt bloated salmon seeking the high shallows. Locked in the little capsule of me-space on the train listening to my iPod. Raining most of the day in London. Met a former colleague Jerry and worked with him and another nice art director called David, coming up with lines and concepts. The day ended with a teleconference with Americans in the agency's New York office. Back to the drawing board. However it keeps me in work for another day at least, so mustn't grumble guv'nor. Home on a delayed train at 8:30 listening to my audiobook, The Nightwatch by Sarah Waters. Once home began work on stuff for my French client, done in under an hour. Spoke to Lorraine this evening. Her move seems to be on for next week. I will help her where possible. Calliope bored and tetchy when I got home. Soon to bed after watching some TV I think.

The bright lights abate Wan and post-migrainey. Luckily my freelance work was stuff I do at home. Spent the day puzzling through the brief and reading up about the Languedoc-Roussillion region, and then trying to sum this all up in a few words. Also luckily Mex and I had stayed with Ken in this region in a village near Limoux, and he drove us to see many of the sites such as Carcassonne castle, Perpignan, and old haunts of the Cathars, while almost continuously singing arias at the wheel. So for once I was writing about something I'd experienced. In an effort to stave off a third bout of flashing visual disturbance, meditated and slept when I could, and went to bed early before migraine could get a grip again. These efforts paid off and I was okay all day. The visual effects, if you strip them of the pain and their disturbing nature, are actually incredibly beautiful, full of prismatic bright colours in angular crystal-like shapes. They travel from the centre of your vision, and th...