under another sun

Back from Anton and Anna's wedding, via a short spell in Brighton. Am finally relaxing a bit. Mrs Kenny and I travelled to Salisbury on Thursday. Infuriatingly, I realised on the train that I'd picked up an early draft of the wedding poem I'd written for the event. Fortunately I was able to get a copy of the final version from the registrar just before the wedding. Thursday night was spent in Philips House -- a huge house in its own grounds. Walked in the side entrance through and then through a bookcase door into a huge high ceilinged room with many big oil paintings of old worthies, a log fire and a view over rolling grounds fringed by trees and with the distant glitter of a small lake. Here's a photo of the house. Philips House Many happy reunions with Anton's family, and I enjoyed meeting Anna's parents for the first time. We rehearsed the ceremony for the marriage the next day. Which involved walking down flights of stairs to a landing where they

Finally a chance to catch up. Very preoccupied with work in the last week, and had to go in yesterday too. Which makes this blog a bit tedious though... I can't really go into what is happening other than tales of trying clients and a deluge of work. Dull reading... Some respite was provided by going into Soho on Wednesday to work on a TV ad. It was an "adapt" -- overseeing the recording of a few voice overs and then off to another suite to add phone numbers and so on to the ad. You find yourself having earnest discussions about whether a telephone number should appear at 19 seconds or 20 seconds. This is my televisual legacy... A lost second of a telephone number on a tv ad. Fortunately "the client" who was with us, was actually really nice -- and we took her to wagamamas in Lexington street. Tried to be charming etc. but still cringing internally from my remembrance of talking to her one night and she asking me how old she was. I said 40 instantly. I guess

Survived Anton's stag weekend. Friday night was good -- it just being Anton and I wandering around Brighton dropping randomly into bars and ingesting a Chinese meal in about fifteen minutes. Back to his place and we listened obsessively to reggae and earnestly talked nonsense till late. Woke up feeling decidedly ropey the next morning, with the sinking knowledge that half a dozen guys were going to want to go mad for it that very afternoon. Anton who was on the phone to Anna had to break off his conversation to hurl up his headache pills. After he and I had drunk lots of coffee, Young Nick and then the rest of the boys duly turned up and we set about drinking our way around Brighton all over again. I find these cat herding sessions quite difficult. Maybe it was because I'm the oldest of the group I appointed myself the sensible one and negotiated for us when the need arose. Fortunately we all made it home safely and I spent the night on a lilo waking up intermittently and

Intense four days at work. I discover I have a slightly different job, and am not sure if this is a good thing yet. Otherwise have been clandestinely writing the poem for the wedding -- but have negotiated a few extra days from fierce women in registry office. I am just about to leave for Brighton again to stay with Anton in preparation for his stag night out tomorrow. Liver and kidneys already squirming in anticipation.

Just back from Brighton, where we stayed with Anton and Anna in their new house in Brighton. Such a cool town, lively and artistic. Can't wait to move down there too when someone eventually buys our house in Kew. Neck glowing attractively as a consequence of lurking in the sun this bank holiday afternoon. Was with Mrs Kenny, Anton, Anna and Trotsky in Brighton. Trotsky is cat. She likes flies, loathes seagulls and enjoys car rides and comes when Anton whistles like an only slightly aloof dog. We spent a couple of hours this afternoon sitting in their back garden watching Trotsky scrabble about clumsily in a almond tree, and trying to decide whether they should go for the blanquette or champagne at their wedding. The decision process involved bottles of each and an inexplicable desire for pizza. Interspersed between hanging out by the seaside and going to bars and restaurants, we talked about the poem they've asked me to write for their wedding. I think I have a plan now

Saw my Mum and Mason last night. Mum gave me two CDs full of painstakingly-assembled correspondence and photographs from her father's family -- who were living in India during the days of the Raj. This is a photograph of Mignonette who is my great-grandmother. As a boy I was always fascinated by the exoticism of this photograph -- what's below is a detail of the bigger photo which is of a group of people gathered on a veranda somewhere in northern India about to go to a fancy dress party. Looking forward to studying all the other pieces -- although Mum said there are some really depressing bits, especially the correspondence of Ella (my Grandfather's first wife) as she was dying of TB. Mignonette I was pleased to see Mason bearing up well after his mother's recent death. When someone dies in their late nineties after a full life the fact that there is no sense of the injustice can help. Otherwise we had a good time guzzling Mexican food and drinking Sol b