under another sun

Lorraine off to her personal trainer. I did some writing, then quickly recorded the podcast intro with Robin which we had forgotten to do earlier. Then off to meet Yvonne for coffee in the Grumpy chef. As usual a good laugh, and we sat in the secret corner which Yvonne seems to favour. Home again and in the afternoon I went for a longish walk nosing about the edges of cornfields, and then down to the sea and eventually home again. Home and Robin had sent the full episode to listen to. Below cornfields and cloudless skies above Bishopstone.  

At work on Gordon Road first thing. Lots to digest and think about after my conversations with Charlotte and Steve but feeling optimistic that I could sort it. Lorraine zoomed off to Eastbourne to do a morning's pottery. At elven I was collected by Yvonne and we hopped into her mini and went to Mamoosh in Newhaven. A good chat and some coffee. She's full of good advice about grandchildren and the importance of dinosaurs. Apparently her two grandsons do a good deal of roaring when they come back from the Dinosaur Safari, at nearby Paradise Park in Newhaven.  In the afternoon Lorraine and I pressed on with sorting out the spare room, so it works as a guest room and  as Lorraine's knitting and sewing domain.  In the evening to Brighton where I met Anton at the Signalman. And a curate's egg of news to catch up on. We also talked about AI. Anton apprehensive about how it will develop. Then we nostalgically popped into the Joker and had some chicken wings -- sadly not the ...

Much less spinny headed. The vertigo is abating. Up early, and did some good writing before nine. Feeling in a much happier place now with Gordon Road. Still lots of work to be done, but much of it has taken shape. The podcast episode finally up this morning. I did a light bit of social media.  It was Valentine's Day today, but I had completely forgotten to get Lorraine a card. So she held off until I bought one, and a nice pot with succulents in it. The pot reminded me of the little wedding doll Romy had given her.  The house a hive of activity this morning. Sylwia here cleaning. With two nice guys Jake and Oscar rotivating and removing thick grass and rotivating the ground on our wild section. Which currency looks anything but wild. The idea is now to insert through the membrane native plants rather than tough grasses. I chatted to them, and they were both in a band, Jake acts and sings (he is a pal of Beth's) and Oscar does architectural drawings and plans. Nice men, and sp...

Slightly more energy today. A wee bit of writing, before Lorraine went off with her walking heads today, and Yvonne came around this morning, and drove us off to Newhaven in her mini car, where we had a cup of coffee on the Harbourside in the sunshine from a cafe called the Mamoosh Riverside. She told me in some detail about having had a splinter of glass in her eyeball, which had my toes curling. Lovely to see her however.  Once home, I wrote for a few hours till my still not fully functioning brain needed a break. Had a short walk down to the sea and popped into Morrisons momentarily.   Feeling suddenly antsy this evening, I walked Lorraine to her book group, and then bought a pint of Director's bitter in the Cinque Ports pub. Reading a book-length essay called  The Weird and the Eerie  by Mark Fisher, which was quite entertaining and discussed H.G.Wells's The Door in the Wall which is one of my favourite stories (and I have a poem loosely based on it in the Maris...

Up and writing, before meeting a cheerful Yvonne in Grumpy's cafe for a cup of coffee and quite a bit of sparkling water.  Lorraine up and doing story time in the Library.  Yvonne shattered after looking after grandchildren, one of whom had woken six times in the night crying. Then she looked at me gleefully. 'This will be your life soon' she said. Yikes! It's bad enough with the cats.  Brian are off on hols next week... Grandkids'll be there too.  The garden this afternoon. I mowed the lawn again, and cleared out the pond and so on. A delivery curry for this evening. Nice to be at home, chilling. Read or wrote nothing improving.

Another beautiful day. Friday, so Lorraine off to give Story Time. I called Mum, and did a spot of light admin, then met Yvonne for coffee in the Grumpy Chef cafe, nice and funny to gossip with her as ever, hearing about her recent holiday, and the ghastliness of waiting weeks for medical test results, which were, it turned out, fine. Then to Brighton for a much-needed haircut. Arriving a bit early, I bought a hot sausage roll as a treat from the real sausage company. Emerging from there I bumped into Anton, who'd left his desk to do a bit of shopping. He was in shorts and floral shirt with skulls and so on, and mocking at my long trousers and light jumper and white shirt. Nice to be in Brighton, thronging with people of all sorts. Arrived early, but Stacy had finished his previous customer in record time, being a famously annoying local character, whose parting shots were to mock Stacy for his name, and telling him it was a girl's name. When I left some time later, shorn and s...

Got up early to work on editing the podcast interview. Did this for a few hours. Lorraine zooming about with energy this morning doing lots of jobs. And after a few hours I tore myself away from the computer, and did some work in the garden with Lorraine, as it wasn't pouring with rain. Of limited use, as I'm still not able to bend very well, but enjoyed hacking at a rogue buddleia and moving some plastic water tanks which Lorraine filled with compost and so on. I also knelt, with great care, by the fishpond and removed overgrown weed, and leaves. The water felt cold.  After a spot of lunch, I mooched off to Baca, a little cafe nearby, to have coffee with Yvonne, who was nailing down details of me being Santa for their little grandsons. Yvonne said Brian had done it last time, but with his black moustache and false glasses he looked too sinister. The plan is that I shall slip over and Brian will take me into the shed to secretly try on their Santa outfit.   In the evening Lorr...

A hot night, in this unseasonal heatwave, and we slept with the windows open. Something buzzing around my head in the night, probably a moth. We got up for an early breakfast, before working more on the seven poems, and Lorraine made ready to drive off to Ashford to collect Pat and Maureen to come to stay.  I broke off for an iced coffee and gossip with Yvonne at 11 sitting outside the Grumpy Chef for an hour, felt a hand on my back, and Jane passed to say hello. Glimpsed what I thought was a large clown out of the corner of my eye, turns out it was a tall older woman wearing a long white dress with splashes of primary colour on it.  Home a salad lunch and trying to to hone the poems without losing their spontaneity and life. Then to the gym again. As yesterday, pleasant to lurk in the cool of the air-conditioned room, and unlike yesterday there were not muscular schoolboys swarming on the weights. I trundled on the cross trainer listening to The Rest Is Politics.   ...

Up early. Calliope persistent in waking me up, not helped by the gulls on the roof sounding like they are dragging corpses about. Did some writing this morning, and did a bit of this and that.  Then Lorraine left to see Chi for a massage at Bodyhaven, and I met Yvonne for a cup of coffee and an Eccles cake in the Salts cafe. Yvonne told me about looking after her grandchildren the day before. The oldest one is mad about dinosaurs and had spent the day roaring and ambushing Brian. He also likes crocodiles, which Yvonne wondered if it was genetic, as she had grown up with her father's pet crocodile. The baby, meanwhile, screamed continuously for about 12 hours, which was harrowing. In the afternoon Lorraine drove us off to Pelham Plants  just north of Lewes, where their Rose Cottage garden was open for charity. This is a nursery that Lorraine follows on instagram, we mooched about in the smallish garden which had lovely hornbeam hedges, and shared some bread pudding with the was...

Friday, clearing up after the liveliness of yesterday, and feeling a bit sadder and wiser after feeling overly refreshed yesterday. Lorraine off to her personal trainer. I made off to meet Yvonne for a coffee and a gossip in Pomegranate. At one point this morning, I called Brian from the kitchen and he didn't respond at all, until I walked out beside him. Lorraine and I did some tests, and it became clear that the poor thing has become deaf. Suddenly some of his behaviours make sense in retrospect. Including when he walks around the house with a catnip fish in his mouth, miaowing trying to find us, and we yell Brian! at him to make him stop. And recently when he was being chattered at by Magpies, he seemed utterly oblivious. Luckily he seems perfectly happy still as far as we can tell.  Otherwise a pretty chilled day, very hot and sipping mineral water. I wrote poems sitting outside with Lorraine, and then we did some assorted light gardening, and then had what seemed to be a much ...

I was doing some freelance work with Gabriel one of my French clients again this morning. This done by one o'clock, however. Lorraine busy in the house and garden, a quick bite to eat before Yvonne arrived for coffee. We sat outside chatting for a couple of hours. I liked it when she described having a bald patch as having an egg in the nest. We also took Yvonne on a full guided tour of the garden, and she brought us a cutting of a succulent. Once she left, Lorraine and I did our meditation and sat quietly for twenty minutes. Later, Robin and Nick collected us to drive us into Brighton along the coast road (this being a train strike day) where Robin was reading with a few other Frogmore stalwarts. An enjoyable enough evening, and a good opportunity for me to say hello to a few people, chiefly a delightfully sweary Anne Perrin.  The readings ranged from stuff I hated and stuff I liked a good deal, which is what you'd want really. I thought Robin's reading was excellent, and ...

Up early and rushing about straightening the house for the open house day. Then nabbing Calliope and taking her to the vet, paid for more thyroid stuff and another blood test.Very pricey. She is not putting on any weight. The vet hinted at other issues.  Home and a frenzy of tidying, and then I showed the lady from the estate agent around. Sam, after quite a bit to drink last night, being extremely helpful, but he found having to rush off stressful. He went to stay with Beth for the day.  Lorraine and I went to the tip to drop off some rubbish. Also a few unsold Clameur CDs. We were quizzed about these, was it a business thing? Were we dumping commercial waste. But it was all okay thanks to Lorraine's persuasive charms.  Then back to Osborne Road to drop the car off and we went to a nearby cafe, Tilt, and we enjoyed a vegetarian brunch and looked at houses on our phones and made another appointment in Seaford. Mooched down to London Road station to catch the train, and on...

With some trepidation headed off to Hampton again. A slight delay but nothing dramatic, thank God. Showed Pat the stuff I had worked on in the train this morning, drew it up and walked with Pat to Waitrose to buy a bite for lunch, and then, after a few conversations, I was done by early afternoon. Fond farewells with my Hampton pals and I was released back into the wild. The FB on vegans: ‘why would anyone voluntarily put themselves at the bottom of the food chain'. Very happy to be homeward bound. Got off the train at Brighton, and headed to The Basketmakers, where I had an emotional encounter with a pint of lager.  I met Lorraine and we mooched off to the Dorset to meet some of my new pals from stained glass: Yvonne, Adele, and Sally, with their respective husbands, Brian, a lovely emotionally intelligent man, Patrick a singer of Opera and writer of music, and Marek an architect. Had an unexpectedly great night out as the other halves all turned out to be excellent, thoroug...

Slipped off the manacles at lunchtime and zoomed over to the Caffè Nero on Western Road to meet my glass buddies. They had reserved tables at the cafe. Nice to see them all, especially Ben, Chris, Yvonne and Adele. Lots of chat about glass, and Ben and I arranged to go for a cheeky jazz beer soon. Yvonne chiding me for not having got my glass work station ready yet. Jumped on the bus on the way home, and got back to thinking about multiple sclerosis and a touch of bovine diarrhoea. Finished listening to Horrorstör  tonight just before Lorraine came home. Although it was a horror story and had gore and a few bits, it mostly reminded me of a superior children's book. Chatted a bit with Sonia, as I mooched on. Eventually stopped work at tea time. Lorraine home quite early, and feeling shattered. I slipped out into the blustery night and got some takeaway food. Lorraine very pleased to be at home, and snuggled on the sofa. We watched a documentary called Three Identical Strangers , a...

Little went to plan this morning. Met Sonia as I was setting off to my glass class. Her first client having accidentally locked her out. I showed her a photo that was on this blog of my glass work in progress, because she didn't know what I was talking about. Arrived at the glass class. Rang buzzer repeatedly. When the door was opened, I found the classroom a Marie Celeste. Searched the several storied building for the disembodied voice who had let me in. I found an officious man in a room marked 'office'. He phoned Ben, who said that the morning class was cancelled. A fact that surprised me. Off to buy Oskar's present for tomorrow. Zoomed to Argos and realised only then that I could only get it from Amazon. No laptop, so I had to go home.  Left home again a bit later, phoning Janet en route, to say that I couldn't fix the piece of glass she had given me. Bought birthday cards for my lovely wife and for Oskar. Realised then that the class was actually on this afte...