Après moi le Deluge

Ghastly night's sleep not helped by a gale which rattled the windows, and Lorraine's cats which kept interfering with me. One of them, Basil, has a habit of patiently resting one of her paws on you till you wake up. This is her cue to step away, sporting an expression which says, in cat language, "that was my idea".

Experimenting today with podcasts. As a pilot I uploaded my podcast of this site. As I love the sound of my own voice so much, I may try other bits and pieces.

A while ago I added a blog link to Mandy's blog. Mandy, who now lives in NZ was at the same school as me, Copland High School in Wembley in the year below mine. As you can see from her blog which carries a photo of her from 1978 that, unlike me, Mandy looks exactly the same. Galling's what I call it. You may notice that Mandy rather likes Bob Dylan.

Also working on my poetry - but in a slightly disorganised way so the day slipped through my fingers with little to show for it. Chats today with Anton who is happily on the cusp of a new craze of bicycling, and Simon and to Lorraine, who is now reunited with her daughter Beth, back from a Corfu holiday.

Am on a bit of a detox (which I refuse to call a diet, even though it is). In the evening, I went for a long and happy walk by the rough sea. Feeling pleased with myself and cheery. Ended up at the far end of Hove watching the parasurfers being snatched up ten feet or more into the air. When they drag themselves ashore to struggle with their gear, they reminded me of broken butterflies with their black rubber suited bodies struggling with flapping colourful kites. I lurked about photographing them for a while as the light grew dimmer.

Walking home, an absolutely torrential rain began. The streets were streaming and the gutters like brooks. Walked down through the twittens up to my own, listening to the rain thudding on the hood of my Berghaus that I was luckily wearing, and the glug-glugging of gutters. Thanks to my Berghaus and walking boots, I was fairly dry - apart that is from my corduroy trousers, which were like wet flapping carpets by the time I got home.

Below rain, and people sheltering from it.