under another sun

After a slow breakfast, Toby still feeling rough. Lorraine and I walked him to the station. A very warm day for blighty. Had coffee and hung out chatting till it was time for him to go. Sad to see the Tobster off at Brighton station. They really need to sort Star Trek beaming out. To the shops then for a wee bit, before returning home. Excitingly collecting from neighbours two things that have been delivered: an amazon firestick which will let us watch net flicks, and a coffee maker like the one we used in France, and a bit like the one Anton has. It uses capsules, and delivers rather excellent coffee and of course is a tremendously middle class purchase. Early this evening much sorting of our dungeon, which is where everything is poked until its fate can be decided. John and his mate Matt are moving into a flat in Hove shortly, and we have donated my old Calliope scratched wooden table and two chairs. This activity gave us an opportunity to have a good sort out in there, well most...

Spent the day slogging in a stressed way, and fairly unprofitably with a sore throat and feeling hot by the end of the day. An early night after paracetamols and The Great British Bake Off. Up to bed and Lorraine read us a bit of Dracula before we slept.

Trying to forge a semblance of organisation, getting my ducks in a row. Property ducks: wrote to solicitors, the house buyers and so on. By the end of the day it seems like things are edging towards completion. Have now done all I can do on this, so am going to forget all about it till after the wedding. Project ducks: Dawn around for an hour this afternoon, planning a writing session for gifted and talented children using a wartime bunker and the power of the imagination. It is an interesting project. Gym ducks: still feeling like I don't have the full bounce, but did a reasonable session. Amazing how after ten minutes or so your mood naturally and very quickly lifts. It is worth exercising simply for the psychological lift it gives you if nothing else. Popped into the pharmacy today, which is being redecorated but is still working. A single desk and till in a stripped bare brick room, with rooms behind where the pharmacists are working still the same. Wedding ducks: wrote...

A good start, working by 7:30 and pushing on more fluently with the final section of the book. Watching Frasiers as I have been is making me consider the psychological aspects of this. Perhaps as I am now nearing the end, a sub-personality wants to drag out the process so that I won't have to face the possibility of rejection. If it is, it is not working, just making this last lap of the first full draft more arduous than it need be when I was writing less self-consciously. Found a folder full of old poems, and a bunch of them I had shown to a fellow poet in the 80s, who had written comments such as Poor,   Dull , and No. No. No. and so on against each one. Still had the power to annoy even across the decades. Trawling it for any lost gems. There were few, and I had to half-agree with my critic of yesteryear. However I did find the original text for Testament of The Man Who Could See Through Walls , which I did at the Water Rats Theatre in King's Cross with Mindy and the la...

Hermetically sealed in the house. Wrote a lot, as the rain tumbled down on the velux windows and the roof. I love that sound.  Cats moping about, shy of getting wet, and taking it in turns to plague me at my desk. Calliope following me about the house like a Philip Pullman dæmon, barging into the toilet after me, huffily following me down two flights of stairs when I go to make a cup of tea, resting her head on my hand as I typed and so on. When she finally went to sleep, Brian materialised and stared at me fiercely trying to seed the idea of feeding him chicken scraps in my head. I declined. Worked steadily on the book with a growing sense of optimism about finishing it.  The dispiritingly long stretch where you are definitely well under way, but there is no end in sight is over.  Cooked a large vat of chicken, leek and butternut squash soup, transferred essential files to my laptop to ensure a triple backup due to the dubious unreliability of my desktop. Wrote to the ...

Lorraine back into her usual routine of getting up at 6:30. My betrothed brings me a cup of tea, though, which makes it marvellous. A good day's writing, a quick go at reworking the lost poem that I deleted on the train at St Pancras last month, then writing about the notion of Adland, and on marketing charities. Feeling that progress is being made and that left to my own devices I might actually finish this thing. Broke off to go to LA Fitness, my gym for an hour or so, chatting to Mum and Mas as I walked there. At the gym, they have unbelievably still not fixed the air conditioning problem. I am having a problem too. I am losing weight everywhere, but my stomach is lagging behind or should that be lagging in front, of the rest. I have to be more fanatical, and shun beers and smiling and do more sit-ups. A spot of shopping noticing the sea mist thick down by the sea, before returning home to sunlight and to reapply the desk manacles. Lorraine came home this afternoon and we we...

Back at last on the book after some weeks. Took me all morning to pick up the threads again. Vaguely disappointed that a poltergeist has not been hard at work at it, while I've been doing other things. Chatted to Mum this morning. And also had more correspondence from the lettings agent people. Then to the gym for a workout. Mercifully the air conditioning appears to be at least partially functional now. Had a shower there afterwards, but discovered I'd not brought boxers with me so went commando to Starbucks and worked there drinking a coffee and thinking about the use of sex in advertising while trying not to chafe myself. Lorraine back on the 5 and 2 diet, so we had steamed veggies, fish and rice. This would have been fine but Lorraine insists on watching the Great British Bake Off which has me craving cakes and breads.

Woke up at 5:30 both Lorraine and I up early, wrong footing the cats, and I caught the early train full of grey faced sleepy heads. I felt much more cheery and made it early to Tavistock Square.  I sauntered off with Kate in the lunchtime sun to look at dresses for the French Bloke and Max's wedding this weekend.  For Kate, not me, obviously. I don't look great in a dress. Although I did once wear a fetching dogs tooth two piece and a red wig while working for IBM in a once only appearance as a female impersonator. A modicum of lung disease work this afternoon.  Listening to Titus Groan on the way home, but it is heavy going. Peake writes like a poet, so much of the joy is in the description. This invites rereading. As an audiobook you plough through, and I keep thinking I must go back to look at certain passages. Another distraction is that I have become addicted to a game called Stick Cricket on my phone, which I played so obsessionally that my eyes hurt. The Shard...

Working on the New Idea again first thing this morning, then up off peak to London, Walking up from Embankment station, I found Villiers Street choked with chuggers collecting for Cancer Research UK. After being approached for the third time I said, probably in an tetchy way, 'I don't do chuggers, love' to which the angry response was 'I'm not a chugger, I am a charity fundraiser'. The people doing it are just doing their jobs, and are happy to have them, but I detest being guilt tripped in the street by complete strangers. On a happier note, I had a cheeky beer and a catch up with Keith in the Salisbury, who has now moved on from Tavistock Square. I often get pains in the back of my head when I am with Keith because I am grinning so much. I then hoofed in the rain to Victoria where I caught up with Paul in the station Weatherspoons, and travelled with him on the train as far as Croydon. Reprehensibly we sipped from a mid-afternoon can of beer on the train. ...