under another sun

Cold nights, and beautiful sunny days. Wrote this morning, and having one of those days when I am feeling very positive about Gordon Road. Also sent off for Mason's death certificate, now finally available after the inquest, which took almost a year to get around to conducting. The registrar sent me a link for this after I wrote to them.  You have to pay for them: £12.50. Spoke to Mum this morning while I was finalising this. World news continues to be unutterably horrible, and I feel very pessimistic. The likelihood of Russia invading Europe, China invading Taiwan and Trump doing yet more evil seem more likely by the day. I am consciously reducing my news consumption, rather like I did at the beginning of Covid. Doomscrolling only makes you feel utterly impotent.   To the gym at lunchtime, where I pushed myself a bit. Walking home I was phoned by the doctor's office saying they needed to tweak my blood pressure pills as my latest readings were still high. This made me feel an...

A sunny Monday, I was woken early by a scam text, with a message saying 'Dad, save my new number'. I went to my desk early to listen to the interview Robin had with Ellen Cranitch. After breakfast  Lorraine surged out into the garden and was very productive while Robin and I did some podcast recording, and talked about our poetry reading in Lewes at the Elephant and Castle pub on Friday 9th May. I spoke to Mum a couple of times and I wrote to the registrars to chase the death certificate. Lorraine and I did a quick scoot around Morrisons for food shopping.    In the afternoon lovely Dawn came around, and she and Lorraine hung out. I mainly left them to their own devices, and did my own writing in the afternoon. Later I went for a walk for an hour and a half by the seaside to use up the calories.   Below hellebore flowers in our garden and a strange little fly.

Off to the gym early afternoon. Walked with Lorraine to Annency Catholic Primary school where Lorraine met Beth and there was a nearly new sale of clothes and kit for babies and toddlers. Considering how few weeks they wear things before the grow out of things, they are barely worn.  They arrived home shortly after I got back from the gym, having had a coffee and lunch and armed with special baby related stuff, including tiny baby grows with dinosaur patterns and so on. A sort of vibrating device to gently rock the baby in its containers and a sort of contraption you can put in the bath to support the baby while you are bathing it. I suspect life is going to take a turn for the Kawaii   though both Lorraine and Beth suggesting with some force that I will need to change nappies. Poos aren't kawaii, so I saw this as a category error. Below turns out there is plenty of cute poop in cyberspace.

Woke up feeling a little sadder and wiser thanks to the Slivovitz. Chatting to Ken before he made off to Pat and Maureen's place. If in doubt, tidy up. I proposed we heroically clean the fridges and Lorraine and I set about them, Lorraine then suggested the immense double cupboard, redistributing and sorting. I am a fan of Dilly Carter (a home-grown tidying up guru) so I find this increasingly therapeutic.  Beth came around for a chat after shopping, with a sudden gusto for a seafood dressing. Apparently the smell of roasting chicken makes her feel a bit weird now she is pregnant.  After these exertions, plus laundry and so on, we watched a little FA cup action. Lorraine cooked a gorgeous curry. I stepped outside and saw Venus, Jupiter and Mars, having nipped out earlier to catch the slither of the new moon lying on its back.  Both of us felt happy to be indoors. Ken returned from a day with Pat and Maureen, plus a session of playing Bingo downstairs with other denizens ...