under another sun

Enzo here this morning, and Lorraine looked after him all day. We had him on Thursday night as Beth and James had developed the spews in the morning. I made off to Hampstead. Bought a ticket at Seaford Station, and realised I'd left my phone at home, so missed the train. Otherwise a smooth journey, and met Mum and Toby at Hampstead station. We sloped down to The White Bear for some lunch. I wanted a photograph, but they both flinched like vampires. A cheery lunch, and great to see the Tobster of course. Toby had a pie, and mum had pea and lovage soup, this time sans the 'weeds', the pea shoots that were added last time. Mum was talking earlier about the man she calls the Parson. Sure enough he came and sat near us. Unfortunately Mum did not count this as a sighting, as he wore some kind of Hawaiian shirt, instead of a dog collar. His cowboyish hat on the table beside him gave it away. I had to return early, however, as I needed to get to The Walrus in Brighton, to host Tess...

An Enzo for breakfast. Lorraine zooming off to the get the little lad first thing. I had a busy day, but enjoyed spending time with him in between going to my Life Drawing Class. A decent session this morning, I used coloured pencils and a pleasant woman model. Adele not there this morning as she was laying out her show at Gallery Uno. Sat next between a new bloke John, whose work I think is good, and Kate, who is always very accomplished and free and brilliant. Nice session.  Hurried home to see the wee boy, who has a new tooth and is full of beans generally. In the afternoon off to see Cóilín. When I got there I said I was sorry for her loss and gave her a kiss, and she went very quiet for a bit while the nurse settled me into the seat. But we had a lovely conversation about her dad for ten minutes after the scraping was done. Home and a bit of bouncing Enzo on my knee and then off to Brighton, where I went to the Walrus to see Robin, SJB, Stephen and Antony Mair. We went upstair...

Doing some interesting writing, and dull business admin. Also heard from Tess Jolly, who is looking at some prose for me, and coming back with some brilliant suggestions. A bit tired and sluggish today, which I found frustrating as I have finally time to do stuff. Looks like I will be freelancing next week too. Read more of Bewilderment . Lovely book. A brief stroll around Blaker's Park. Was struck by the beautiful vision of a bank of clouds over the shining sea, looking like an onrushing wall of cloud. This photo doesn't really capture it, but I like the photo anyway, especially how the sun came out strangely.

A day of being wanted. Begun with reading the stories Tess Jolly had proofed for me. She had done such an amazing job on them. Not only made them all consistent, and corrected my aberrant punctuation and so on, but also the few micro-level tweaks were a bit of a writing masterclass. Wonderful. Wrote a paragraph or two to get Lorraine started on her Parish Church article. Lorraine working from School today as she had to allow in men to do scaffolding. A quick walk about the park before work started. Prepped for the recording I then did with Robin for the podcast. Quite fun talking to her as usual about poems. Spoke to Anton, who wanted to talk about boules among other things. Then to Mum, who the solicitor had spoken to. Late in the day I got a lengthy letter from him. Messages from Toby about another, but cheerful, matter entirely. While recording with Robin I received a call from Val in Paris, with a tiny job that needed to be done quickly. Good to talk to her.  I took a briefing ...

A third day of hibernation, with Lorraine having a day off in lieu of the day she will work at school during half term. I have to go outside eventually, as it makes me feel very antsy not walking. As Lorraine was off, I only worked for a short burst, editing the Rhona interview. I contacted her to re record one of the poems as there was a bit of bippety boppety interference in the original I had not noticed at the time. Also did my first spot of billing for 2021, which was cheering -- and I have another smidgeon of work later in the week -- and even the faint possibility of some the following week. Heard from Tess who is kindly proofing some of my short stories. She queried my use of commas. I have  become increasingly sloppy over punctuation over the years. So it is really useful to be able to access her brain on this. Lorraine playing Nintendo games quite a lot today. I joined her playing Mariocarts, which I enjoy, although the multicoloured landscape you zoom through overloads y...

A fun Friday. Did a bit of writing I was really pleased for the first few hours, and then after a snack at lunch, hoovered, washed the kitchen floor and other domestic chores for a couple of hours. Spoke to Anton who while speaking to me was watching heavily armed policemen walking along the street checking under cars. Otherwise he is greatly pleased by having reached his target weight of 80kg after a month of starving himself and drinking nothing.    Lorraine home early, being this week slightly more on top of things, and has been finishing earlier, and was at home before five tonight. We even played some cards, and treated ourselves to woof woof chicken wings and oven chips, washed down with some beers. We watched Sherlock and a French series called Lupin on TV.  Also, quite late, watched a documentary about Dolly Parton, which I weirdly enjoyed. Spoke to Mum and Mas. I am so happy they are vaccinated but they are as bored and depressed by lockdown as anyone, and stress...

Icy rain this morning, and Facebook full of pictures of people north of here enjoying the snow. Not a flake on Kenny Towers though.  A nice breakfast of avocado and crispy bacon on toast. A spot of tidying up, laundry, floor mopping and so on. Lorraine enjoying her exploration of the beautiful underground wonderland in a game called Pode for quite a while. Chuffed as Tess is setting up a business as a professional proofreader, and said she could practise proofing on a bit of my stuff. This prompted me to gather some of my short stories with a view to getting some of them properly read for errors. In the afternoon I went for a quick stroll up the hill listening to Bleak House while I did so. I then came home to pick up Lorraine for a quick stroll around the neighbourhood. We bumped into Simon and his wife for a chat, but it was uncomfortable with people trying to come through on the pavement. A quick circuit of Blaker's Park, and past the closed down pubs The Cleveland and The Prest...

Various bits of admin and preparing for the meeting with Robin this afternoon. Otherwise the US election seems in the balance, with the Blue Wave not really happening. The fact is that there are millions of Americans happy to vote for this maniac.   Beth came around in the afternoon after working at L's school for a bath and to visit for the last time before lockdown 2. Had toasties and a chat... She and James are planning to move in together for the new year.  Jumped on a train for the 14 mins ride to Lewes. The train very sparsely populated and the windows open. Watched with something like admiration as a bloke of about 50 who got on just after me, and sat a couple of rows away, had a big bag of beers and chugged two of them by the time we arrived at Lewes.  Met Robin outside the station, and we walked to two pubs, and sat in a pub garden but the ambient noise was too great, and then we sat on a big upstairs terrace of a pub called The Rights of Man. We were the only pe...

Up early and Lorraine and I cat herding Brian and Calliope into the carrier, and we took them off to Top Cats in Patcham. A bit like an alien abduction for them this time, as we had to sit outside in the car, then hand them to a veterinary nurse, who took them in the basket inside to be examined. We were phoned in the car to chat to the vet, and then they were injected and brought out again. The cats were fairly calm, and even Calliope's yowling was only half hearted. Home again, and then did a bit of work, a sandwich lunch, then walked over to the osteopath in Hove, and back. Pouring rain on the way back. No thunder though. Not sure much is changing in my back, but I will not return for a month now. Home and a hot shower, as I was soaked. Then a bit more fiddling with jobs, before I began the third attempt to interview Tess. My invitation emails that she had to click on to join the conversation went into her spam file, or were mysteriously delayed, then her headphones wouldn...

Felt like a back to school day, and Lorraine hard at work doing unspeakable work. I spent the morning doing various bits of preparations for interviews, and also chatted to Val in France who gave me a new wee job. Then, after a light avocado-based lunch, I walked over to Anton's house in the sunshine. Anton on the scaffolding at the front of his house, showed me the scene of the fire, a nasty charred hole on a window frame, which all things considered was a good deal better than the alternative. I went to the back of the house where Oskar was working and nipped up the scaffolding and began painting the window at the top of the house. Ten minutes into this job it was raining hard, and so we simply had to come on. Anton resigned to the ire of the gods. Poor guy has had little luck. He blamed both me and Oskar for the weather however. Spoke to Mum, Mason not too well today with an upset stomach. I walked back home in the rain, grateful for a bit of a stroll at least. At 7 o'...

What with it being the last day of June, a steady rain in Brighton. I stayed in all day, and worked through my list of things I didn't particularly want to do, such as making a osteopath appointment, a doctor's appointment about the wretched ears, uploaded a tiny YouTube video of Someone else's patch  in my Little Horrors collection which I recorded several weeks ago. Also wrote to Jane and Richard, from whom I got a lovely email back, wrote to Tess Jolly about the uncanny, and took a photo of a snail, whose people were busy chomping through everything in the garden. I cooked a bean jar today. The smell permeated through the house all day, and was pretty tasty. It was a beef one, it is the only thing I cook with beef, with herbs from the garden, eaten with chewy brown loaf was rather delicious. Chatting to Mum this afternoon, who was heroically filling in tax forms. The revenue normally sends someone around to help, but... plague etc. Lorraine home this evening, tir...

Took my laptop on the train and worked on my poems. The first Wednesday I'd not had a poetry reading since I've been working at Paddington, and quite a relief.  Still fighting for scraps of stuff to do at the agency, there will be an absolute torrent of work at some point, but it it all bottlenecked and I'm slightly dreading what will happen when it comes uncorked. Luckily I had a few things to do, such as write some stuff for an interview Louise Tondeur is doing on her site, and writing a bit of blurb for Tess Jolly's new pamphlet. This I did quietly. Sloped off for a walk along the canals at lunch, chatting briefly with Mum, and to Anton and Carl. Not spoken to Carl for some time, and it was good to be able to catch him. Despite not having much to do at work, I am still finding the commute and long days tiring. Maybe its something to do with the flu jabs Lorraine and I had at the weekend, both our arms are still a bit painful. Home on the train, reading a chapter ...

A sluggish start for me, luckily dropped off at the station by Lorraine. The connecting train was cancelled, but I still managed not to be late to work. Listened to a few podcasts, read a story or two by Rachel Joyce. They are okay, but somewhat clunky. Finished the collection on the way home. A bizarre day when there was little work for me to do. This always a bit uncomfortable, as you can’t blatantly relax into doing nothing.  However there were a few pleasant distractions. I heard from Tess Jolly, whose poetry I love, all dark and mysterious and asked to write a few lines for the back of her new pamphlet. Going through the MS, called Thus the blue hour comes and I found myself thanked in the thank-yous for having encouraged her in the early stages of this collection, which is was a lovely suprise. And also this blog post about my winning poem, by J.O. Morgan  on the Happenstance website. Very chuffed with this, as it is one of the new batch of short poems I wrote...

Up early with a scratchy throat and reading a slightly alarming email from mum about Panamanian adventures. Toby feeling unwell on arrival and went to hospital and had a drip and given some pills, but has been discharged. Later I learned from a facebook post that they had also met Margaret Atwood in the airport. I meanwhile spent the first few hours of the day working on the Shakespeare poem for this . Then off to the gym for one of my trademarked mild mannered workouts and home again for a miso soup lunch. Then I bused to Hove where I spent a three hours with Helen. She looked very well after her cancer treatment last year, and it was great to catch up with her. She had new music to play me on our Centaur project. Really good stuff, a fully orchestrated first twenty minutes of the opening to the opera, she played me on Sibelius . I'm really sensing and organic core to it now. And then some gorgeous bits including an aria on the piano. Bus badness, meant I had to walk half the ...

Monday. Emailed Val in Paris to send my best wishes. Nobody at their office hurt, thankfully, although their office is close to where the trouble was. Started by working on my poems. Then quickly morphing into doing accounts, after seeing Andrew on Friday. Rain and ghastliness outside for most of the day and night. Anton drove around to collect my waterproof over trousers to wear while on a walking break next week.  He zoomed in and looked at our new music player, and liked it. Not too surprising as he was the one who recommended it. Then outside to go for a quick spin in his new BMW which has a retractable roof and heated seats with little hot blowy things that puff on the back of your neck. Drove around in the cool day, with electronically warmed buns. Back for a teleconference, and to arrange to see Brad later in the week to work with him on the DRTV edit in Canterbury. Rest of the day spent untidying my office, doing accounts and so on. In the evening, after Beth had cook...

Monday and at my desk early for more canine capers, the results of which I sent off to Paris this afternoon. Little else to report. Made off to the stanza poetry workshop this evening, some more interesting work, and a guy of about 26 called Peter had suddenly been bitten by literature after falling in love, and had been reading John Keats and Charles Bukowski avidly. Robin was handing over the baton of organising the workshop to a male Robin. I read a new poem about W.B. Yeats and myself being bitten by literature, and Tess Jolly suggested an edit which fixed it for me, which was great. Straight home afterwards as I was feeling tired, Lorraine and Beth upstairs I sat in the garden for a few minutes at 9:30 and it was still light and birds were singing, and the few clouds looked lovely and I had a sense of all being right with the world.

A steady day of working at my stuff, broken by a walk into town to pick up Lorraine's present, which was being delivered to a store today. It wasn't there, which was annoying, but at least I had a good walk. Working this afternoon in the garden, as I have discovered that my laptop seems to pick up the wifi outside, which is excellent. Off in the evening to poetry workshop, the standard there is always improving. Tess Jolly produced another outstanding poem the second in what is going to be a fabulous sequence, an interesting poem from Tony taking an enigmatic piece of graffiti with strange syntax, and creating a poem in the same way. Antony had an excellent love poem too. I took along a poem that I have been struggling with off and on for years, and Tess suggested simple a fix for it that I'm really happy about. Walking home I peered into the window of The Brighton Tavern and saw Matt was there on a quiet monday, so popped in and put the world to rights over a couple of...

Sad news today from Matty, who told me Graeme had died from his cancer. Graeme was a lovely man, loads of fun and completely decent and kind. First Matie and Matty particularly loved him, and I feel for them very much. Lorraine and I both sad about his death. Otherwise I worked more on a big poem on the theme of fear. And talked to agencies. The Paris one definitely wants me to go over next week to do the pitch with them. I was also called by the same agency who phoned me last week offering work. A couple of hours after I agreed to it, I was told they'd changed their minds. To the gym, although not particularly full of oomph today. Home and warm enough to sit in the back garden to have some miso soup. I love having a garden, and I look at few plants we have planted several times a day. In the evening off to the Stanza poetry meeting. A cheerful night, some lovely people there. Several including one by Tess Jolly which blew me away. An amazing poem. I had a quick drink and a cha...