under another sun

I got up early and went to my desk. I am not in a flow state. When I am, I can look up and realise an hour or several has evaporated. With Lorraine away, and nothing pressing to do, I have the perfect few days for writing. My focus and enthusiasm is lacking, but I went through the motions and made a small improvement to one poem.   I missed Lorraine, who is staying in Ashford and busy helping Pat and Maureen get ready for their move.  For years I was perfectly happy in my own company, but now not having Lorraine around feels weird and unnatural. I have been brainwashed. Lorraine says she spoke to the jewellers who were aghast that the stone had fallen out of her new ring that I'd bought her as a belated birthday present, and to bring it back.  I went for a longish walk this afternoon, which helped my general antsy feeling. The beautiful weather meant there were a few more people there. A large group of south asian folks near the bottom of Edinburgh road, appeared to broug...

Some good writing this morning, focusing on one thing... The poetry MS. Dan and Greg back today, and working hard. Lovely to see the detested mushroom pinky green wallpaper disappearing. Then to the gym again this afternoon and eating healthily. Gull wars continue, this bugger has been standing on our skylight stamping his feet again, which sounds like a drum being hit. I snapped him from below. I am pleased with this photo of a herring gull's feet. 

Got up with Lorraine and after working for a couple of hours went to the gym, for the second day in a row. Only trundling on the cross trainer on a low gear, but it feels good to be back in the groove. Then to Starbucks to do a bit more work, and join a teleconference with my pals in Chiswick about a work thing. The cafe was too noisy, so I had to conduct most of the hour long conversation walking about in Pavilion Gardens, with squawking seagulls and cheering Italian students, and a man smoking a large skunk spliff adding to the local colour. Then I walked to Hove where, feeling hungry after the gym, I bought myself a small pastie in the co-op. Sat in Norfolk Square and started it, benignly throwing a crumb to a pigeon nearby. Soon I was surrounded by several dozen pigeons and half a dozen gulls. To my amazement a pigeon few onto my hand and started eating my pastie, while another climbed onto my arm. The most Hitchcockian pigeons I have ever encountered. I managed to dispel them,...

Birdwatching Lots of time this weekend as Lorraine had at last finished her course. She hardly knew what to do with herself. To celebrate we drove off to Woods Mill. On the way there we stopped the car to look at two tractors in a field surrounded by hundreds of seagulls. A Hitchcockian sight. At Woods Mill we sought out snowdrops and sat in the bird hide looking at various woodland birds, mostly great tits, blue tits, long tailed tits, chaffinches and a robin, plus two small reddish rodents. A quick walk about in the woods and then home again. In the evening off to see A Dangerous Method , about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. I quite enjoyed the film perhaps because I wasn't expecting too much from it. Lorraine quite liked it, though was dubious about the casting and Ikea Knightly's Russian accent. We saw it at The Duke of York Picturehouse a few hundred hards from home, which is always a pleasure. Below gulls, they seemed in a great hurry to roost in the freshly ploughed ear...

A gull about town Splendid day today. Beautiful sunshine. Lorraine and I walked through Brighton, which was buzzy this weekend with some kind of comedy week going on. We passed an open air slapstick performance of road menders, but I particularly enjoyed the person I saw walking about dressed as a seagull, complete with bright yellow legs. Lorraine and I wandered about on the pier, which was crammed as if it were the height of summer. I felt really cheery. In the evening I went out to celebrate my birthday with Anton and Anna, and Lorraine. Anna and Anton brought me some excellent presents: a toaster in Chelsea football club colours, which brands CFC onto each piece of bread it toasts. Also a calendar for next year, but with the card for every day you can make an origami airplane. We had ideas of going to all kinds of restaurants this evening, but the tides of tradition washed us up at my usual curry house, after a few enjoyable drinks. A fab night out.

Chips with Hitchcock Hot sunny day here in Brighton. Sat typing at my desk for a few hours in my dressing gown before I decided that I had to be doing something a bit more physical. Spent a happy couple of hours scraping flaking paint from the windows downstairs, and giving them a new lick of paint. In the afternoon made off to my usual cafe where, supping an Americano, I had an excellent idea for one of the last poems to go in the collection. Excited by this, I hurried home to work on this again for a couple of hours. When Lorraine came we decided to sit on the pebbly beach, in the orangey pink evening light, and eat some fish and chips. This sounds idyllic but we were surrounded by Hitchockian seagulls beading us with their mad yellow eyes, and crowding too close. We'd already seen a few minutes earlier a seagull swoop down to a table and grab a half-eaten pizza and, finding it too big to flap off with, tore wildly at its cheesy topping. There are two tribes in Brighton, as I hav...