under another sun

A large scale clear up this morning. Later in the afternoon,  Adele and Patrick came around for another Shakespearian bonanza. This time it was Pericles, which proved (I'd not read it) a very odd play indeed, and not much like Shakespeare, including some odd word choices that didn't seem in his usual lexicon. But then Shakespeare does what he likes. Great fun reading it with Patrick and Adele -- sitting in the garden at first, lapping up a quick drink, and then then  broke off for a lamb biryani that Lorraine had cooked -- and Patrick played Lorraine the three songs he's lately composed, which I had listened to with Andrew the other night.  Then into the smelly living room... Thanks to bad Brian to finish off the play. Quite drained by the end of it. It's all great fun spending time with Adele and Patrick who throw themselves into the action with gusto, and an educational improvement too. I can now call myself person who has read (and listened to) all of Pericles. And i...

A cheery day. Woke up feeling as if a cloud had lifted. Lorraine and I started peeling old wallpaper from the big bathroom. Much of the bathroom is tiled, but there is a strip of biscuit coloured wallpaper running around the room. We are replacing this with a fairly muted olive green which will nicely bring out the colours of the tiles.   In the afternoon we made our way to Patrick and Adele's house and spent the next several hours reading aloud Richard The Second, the Shakespeare play. I had never read this before, and I really enjoyed it. Was a play about a weak king who, rather mysteriously, gives up his throne without a fight. We sat about eating snacks and eventually having a couple of drinks while doing this in an array of silly voices attempting to help the parts sound different. Adele slipping in and out of a Birmingham accent into a few others.  Lorraine and I were invited up to Patrick's music studio and we heard the latest version of Shiny Shoes, which he had been w...

An excellent morning's writing today, and a happy afternoon pottering about with Lorraine, doing a bit of gardening, and pouring buckets of our remaining rainwater into the fishpond which has evaporated lots due to the strong wind and cloudless skies. A day for talking about life and meditation. I have had a few 'ah-hah!' moments about the mental ruts I have found myself in recently, and am now able to find ways of escaping them. I feel happier than I have felt for some time. We have some peas growing, which Lorraine was very excited about.  In the evening, we took ourselves off to the Little Theatre in Seaford and saw a local production of Twelfth Night. We met Adele and Patrick there, and members of Lorraine's cheery book group including Kate and Delores who I have met before. I enjoyed it enormously, and felt absolutely refreshed in the cascade of beautiful and funny language. Every line a zinger. The direction fairly good too, and the actors did well enough. I don...

Lorraine and I like to lurk in bed at the weekend, but I had a hospital appointment this morning. Still up after Beth had gone to work, and Olivia had headed northward without me saying goodbye to her. The hospital something else to twitch about, but Lorraine came with me, and the consultant and nurse were absolutely charming and friendly, and once I was seen I was all done in about twenty minutes. Colonoscopy to look forward to shortly. Home we had a nice brunch with Sam and Jade at home, Jade scraping the burnt toast, and all of us hanging about in a relaxed way in the kitchen. I've really enjoyed having them stay, and good to have time to chat to them. Then we dropped Sam and Jade near the station, with fond farewells. Then on to Hove to get a new tyre for the car, siting in it, as they jacked it up and replaced it. Sitting there watching blokes go about the business of moving tyres about, and listening to the blaring pop music gave me a Proustian flashback to working in...

Sent off my Shakespeare poem this morning for Project 154, and it was acknowledged a few hours later. Quite pleased with it. It will be printed opposite sonnet XIX in the anthology. My poem is focused on the person Shakespeare wants to preserve in the verse. It finishes with 'Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,/My love shall in my verse ever live young.' My poem is in the voice of the lover haunting the sonnet, saying he didn't want to be live forever locked in the poem and is called 'Locked in the Lines', and will be printed between the lines of the Sonnet XIX. Future Kenny scholars will observe that this is a typical Kenny move, the sort of thing that was behind This Concert Will Fall In Love With You . Having sent this off as Cactus the next door cat was taking his morning toilet in our bushes, I then had the best morning's writing of poems that I have had in a very long time. Rather chuffed by all this. Then off to the gym, where I had a slig...

Sunday sonnets Sluggish start to Sunday, seem to be experiencing narcolepsy. Arm slightly better although I still cannot get it up to my mouth, and so having to eat left handed. Went to meet Paul and his son VJ and a friend of Paul's called Shanny, I think. Lorraine and I went to the beach to see them, but they were in Weatherspoons feeding VJ with sausages. Paul as usual being an exemplary father in his black shirt with flames around the collar. Lorraine asked what his friend did and she said she was an illustrator and aromatherapist, 'but not the fluffy sort'. My heart sank momentarily when Paul said that as a dyslexic parent Governor he had problems with education, eyeing Lorraine, but all was well. Mainly as VJ is an unbelievably smart and sweet five year old. This a quick chat, and they went back to the sea, Lorraine went shopping and I returned home. I was then called by a new acquaintance Richard Gibson, who I met in the pub around the corner. Richard and I have a fe...

To thine own self be true Happy new year! This new year's morning I have just walked out into the corner store in what seems a very sleepy Brighton, subdued in the aftermath of fireworks and partying, not to mention the two men who ran back and forth in the twitten making Native American style whoopings in the night. However I party pooped, thanks to the flu (aka the humbug). But this was good as I got to talk to Mum and Toby and Lorraine and take happy new year texts from many others. On the 30th, which was Mum's birthday, I travelled back down to Brighton. I felt a bit sad that I had brought only extra laundry and sore lungs to Mum and Mas for Christmas. It felt good to glimpse the great outside and to exploit the opportunity to glare balefully at people with my fiery Sauron eyes. Lorraine came around shortly after I arrived, and cooked me a meal, and generally took care of me. As a hypochondraic, I find knowing that she used to be a ward sister a great comfort. This time las...