under another sun

A full day and no mistake guv'nor. Excellent news ... Doctor Spotlight  is now published online. Also The Grieving   is published in Supernatural Tales today. Sadly there was little time to sit about feeling big and clever.  Friendly email from Yang Lian this morning, and I arranged to interview Brian Holton, his translator. He was available immediately, so I snuck in a cheeky twenty minute call to him this morning, recording the interview. A lovely man, who has translated Lian since the nineties, and also is the only regular translator of Chinese into Scots, as well as being a poet and musician and performer. However this leaves me with a big problem as I now have three interviews with fluent and talkative people to condense into one show.  Sonia here today, but I stayed locked in my room and barely had time to talk to her. Brief chats with Sam and Jade during the day. And snatched ones with Betty about rum, and Anton too. Otherwise working on a new brief....

First of February. No pinches and punches, thankfully. I hate January, and am always pleased to see the back of it. Sent off my biographical note to David Longhorn at Supernatural Tales yesterday, and was feeling cheery about the idea of seeing my story The Grieving  published.  Quite a few conversations today, for me at least. Spoke to Keith this morning, about a job it now seems likely we will be doing later in the week. He was raging about his smart lighting, which has gone wrong. No longer can you simply turn a light on or off, but it all has to be controlled via the wifi, and having plugged an ethernet cable into it, the lighting went haywire. I must admit I am far happier with a simple on off affair, but maybe this is a sign of age. Anton called too, it being a new dawn for him, having come off his extreme diet and is contemplating his first drink in a month. A good chat with First Matie, who is having a challenging time. Ian, however, is being a solid as a rock as usual...

Lorraine working at home this morning, although of course everyone else being told to run for the bunkers does not apply to teachers so back to work as normal come 11:30. So the first day of what they are calling the second lockdown (a watery seeming lockdown to me) was a writerly day for me. I thanked David the editor of Supernatural Tales for the acceptance of   The Grieving  and resent a version with fewer typos. Also finished another edit of my latest story, called Doctor Spotlight . In the afternoon uploaded the second Planet Poetry episode, and did a bit of social media trumpeting. The bit I like most is seeing it slide into the podcast on my iPhone just like the ones I listen to.  My walk transformed by the fact that the golf course now has no golfers again, so all the glorious space up there is free to saunter around in and absent of eighteen hole troublers -- and there were lots of people doing so. Gorgeous. Made the mistake of walking near two schools at chuck ...

Spent much of the day continuing to pull together some kind of portfolio of my work (so much work done, so little evidence of it). My new contact who had prompted this, contacted me this evening about a job that involved interviewing senior pharma execs to produce an article about Covid. I said I could do it, but was emailed four times in the evening demanding proof of all the times I had done a job just like this. I had none, of course as nobody will have done. After harrying emails, I had had enough of him and his job. So left peeved at having to turn work away, but also happy that I was able to simply nip a what would clearly have been a world of irritation in the bud. A quick chat with mum this afternoon. We are lucky to have FaceTime at this time. Otherwise sent a story, The Grieving , off to Supernatural Tales. Fingers Crossed. Readied another one to send tomorrow. Dawn working upstairs again today. Lorraine home with some presents from kids and parents, and after a quick lun...

Up early and made the last few changes to The Grieving, which is the name of the strange story I have been working on, it is only 4.5k but it took quite a bit of getting right. I'm going to set it aside for a bit now, before I think of unleashing it on the world. Then to Preston Park just down the road, where I met some of my glass friends. We all sat in a big circle near the Rotunda. Adele, Sally, Ben, Rick and Frances, two Kates, Dena, and Jane.  It was all very sociable, but still odd sitting far away from people. I was sitting nearest to Adele, Ben and Frances, and enjoyed chatting to them particularly. Ben has lost lots of weight, being on a steady diet for some time. There was a cool sea mist today in Brighton, so it was not hot at all. I decided to go for a walk, and ended up mooching off to the Hillfort Again. Tired however. When Lorraine got home, she had her post school shower and we sat on the bed chatting for a bit, and I fell sound asleep for three-quarters of an h...