under another sun

Another wet and blowy day, with lots of fine rain. Lorraine and I chiefly had a big hoover and tidy up of the house, and then simply relaxed. Beth home after a sleepover with pals, and laying low, beset by cats. Lorraine doing jigsaws, sewing and reading, and me finishing stories by H.P. Lovecraft and Nathan Ballingrud. A brief interlude between rain where Lorraine pruned the rose bush in the front garden. We watched The Death of Stalin, which had Armando Iannucci's brilliant portrayal of political chaos to the fore. Lorraine cooked her amazing Persian rice, Chelsea beat Tottenham. All good. I received a note today confirming my day at Balfour School on important Skelton Yawngrave business. Balfour is on Balfour Road, which is parallel to Osborne Road where we live, just one turning down the hill. Also planning with Lorraine a creative writing masterclass with some of the Bolney bairns there. I'll be doing it with Lorraine, which will be great fun.

Another day manacled to my desk, albeit punctuated with brief walks. New agency phoned this afternoon. The client who selected the route I had created, with images of people and quotes, now says he is really happy with this route except he doesn't want images of people or quotes. Sigh. The agency knew this yesterday but only thought to tell me about it this afternoon. All the emails I have sent to the agency went into their junk folder. Naturally they still want the job delivered for Friday. More happily, Valerie phoned me from Paris, pleased with what I had done, and wanting a smidge more from me on Monday. Two agencies, but it's chalk and fromage. Had another Thomas Ligotti book delivered today, cheerfully entitled The Conspiracy Against The Human Race, and have discovered a podcast called The good friends of Jackson Elias, from a website called Blasphemous Tomes . They have a bazillion episodes mostly about H.P. Lovecraft, but horror in general, but it strays into H.P. L...