Teeming on a Monday

An early start in teeming rain. Lorraine drove me to Brighton station hideously early, where I bought a travel card to St Pancras, but due to various cancellations, got an early train to Victoria and caught a bus instead. Crossed Russel Squeare in the rain, and then popped into Starbucks below the office for breakfast. Left in reception for ages, watching the unfriendly receptionists service their facebook accounts. Loads of new people there since I last worked in Tavistock Square, but a few old friends. Slug who called me in to work on the pitch was on holiday. Karam is imminently about to be a father. And Fernanda who I will be working with had a gall bladder operation last week.

 No brief however, so spent the morning idling a bit. Managed to follow up on Island Review about my poem, which they accepted about a year ago. Their reply to me must have gone astray, and rather embarrassingly they had published it last week.  Nice to see The Remembering Cliffs get a breath of air again. I was trying to remember when I wrote it. My first estimates were around 1989, but I actually think it was a few years before this. I still like this poem very much.

Eventually fed some information about what I will be working on.  It will be about a form of skin cancer. Fernanda and I spent time in the afternoon thinking about patterns, and skin and so on.

Train slow and stopping, once in a tunnel for some time which began to make me think of The Railway Children and other tunnel-based misadventures.  Home eventually, rather tired, and Beth had kindly cooked for us all, a PK pleasing plate of spaghetti with quorn bolognaise.

The England game against Slovakia had already started. An eager but ultimately toothless performance from Engerland. There is an agricultural hoofiness about the team. Watching England is always stressful but rarely fun enough.

A walk through Russell Square in the rain.