under another sun

While Lorraine supported Beth in making a job application, I made off to the gym. Preston Park busy with sporty people. Another trundle on the cross trainer for me. Feeling a bit down on my own efforts today. I realised that over the last few years I have had fairly big artistic projects to get involved in,  such as launches of poetry books, concerts with Matt, plays with Betty and so on. This year by comparison feels fallow. Home, and Lorraine and Betty finishing off, and Beth's pal Laura came by and they zoomed off together. Lorraine and I broke up the small shed that had been used to keep rabbits in by the previous owners. We emptied it out, then unscrewed it and crowbarred it into obedience. The garden now has new decking, almost complete, as I spoke to Clem over the fence and the last joists have not yet arrived to complete it, but is strewn with the old decking, and bits of shed -- so a bomb site basically. Calliope hiding among it. Luckily, Clem knows people who will tak...

So working from first thing, and finally stopped working on The Second Kind of Darkness around lunchtime.  There are still a few hopefully minor typos in I imagine, but there comes a time when you have to declare that, for now, you are done.  Lorraine printed off three copies, and I am going to give them to Dawn and Rosie. Lorraine will look at it when she gets time, and Amanda had already read the first chapter down under by the time I went to bed. Then I sent some spreadsheets off to the accountants, and then sauntered down to the gym, feeling that all in all I'd done a pretty good day's work. Home again, and Calliope balked at the vital moment when I was administering her cat drugs and I sprayed liquid around the kitchen. Drinking a glass of fizzy water later, I felt that it tasted a bit odd. Beth home this evening, all cheery at having found a flat with John that she likes. Lorraine home and fed quickly as she was hangry. Then the dystopian joy that is The Handmaid...

Like last night, we slept with the Juliette windows open. But because of Brian's suicidal tendencies we have to close the bedroom door. This means the infernal Calliope scratches at the door like a poltergeist after five o'clock. Up early with Lorraine, and watering the hanging baskets at seven. The jasmine smelling lovely in the garden. Then working hard on The Second Kind of Darkness  despite the soporific heat. Also uploaded digital banner advertising for Edinburgh. A long walk late in the afternoon, still very hot.  Climbed up to the Hollingbury golf course high behind us, and looked at the downs sweltering in the heat, and Brighton below. Listening as I walked to my Tim Winton book of autobiographical essays, The Boy Behind the Curtain . Listening to one where he stayed in Ireland through the winter near what the locals thought of as a tremendously haunted castle. Quite a contrast having your head full of damp winter Ireland while in a heatwave. Home and I griddled s...

A happy Monday. I feel as if I have quietly won the pools, not having to schlepp up to London still. Lots to be done. Reworked the Edinburgh script, so as to tweak it for Matt and an Edinburgh audience. Did layouts of adverts and posters and so on. Also went to the gym, and decided that my wellbeing was important. Consciously shunning stress and doing things to promote happiness. Like strolling through the rose garden on the way back from the gym and giving my nose a treat. Chatted to Mum, as I hadn't spoken to her over the weekend and she's fine apart from Salty having been wounded in some kind of difference of opinion with crows, Mum thinks. Later, Lorraine and I watched the dystopian Handmaid's Tale tonight. Quite pleased that things haven't got that bad yet. And we went for a walk in the balmy summer evening together through Blakers Park and streets nearby. Lorraine smelling flowers wherever she goes.

Lorraine having a senior leadership meeting in the house. We got up at 7:00pm, which was mild mannered by usual standards.  I sat at my desk in the Kenny nerve centre, slowly picking up the threads of what needs to be done. Quite a lot, it turns out. I want to do is finish the novel, but the organising to be done for the Edinburgh adventure is jangling my nerves and has to be done first. I bought indemnity insurance for the play. Betty appeared in my study, and I had not seen her for a while to talk to, and she and John are getting excited about renting a flat together. I told her I was already getting empty nest syndrome. Went to the gym at lunchtime, and had a little more gas in the tank than the day before yesterday and managed half an hour on the cross trainer. Good to be exercising again, as I feel particularly unfit at present. Then we walked back home and resumed work. Enjoyed the commute home from work once I was done, and Lorraine's senior leadership team had le...

Locked the cats out of our bedroom last night, as we had the Juliette windows open, and Brian has a tendency to fling himself amateurishly out of them only to get trapped on the roof below, is to be avoided, given that it is four stories down. Instead Calliope clawed poltergeist style at the door till I had to get up and feed her anyway. I made us breakfast in bed, and the took it upon myself to advance my theories of how postmodernism has contributed to the new post-truth era to Lorraine for some time. Poor woman. A quiet day today. Much needed. I'm still feeling shattered, and find it difficult to focus on anything much. Popped out briefly to a local Open House where Lorraine bought herself a little necklace she had seen at the beginning of the open houses. Otherwise attended to a few bits and pieces, pottered in the garden, listened to a radio show about the multifarious health benefits of turmeric (Lorraine and I later made a simple omelette with turmeric in it, which taste...

Started the day with tea and a piece of toast brought to me in bed by my lovely wife, who then said there was news on the radio saying the Twitten had been roped off due to a suspicious nutter clambering about on rooftops. Brief visions of my purchaser, driven mad by solicitors, came to mind. Later a man was arrested, after what appeared to have been a night on the tiles. Mooching about without being able to focus on the big stuff due to the house sale on Friday looming over everything. More dealings with the incompetent solicitors having to chase them day before the completion is infuriating and doesn't instil feelings of confidence in what will be the biggest transaction of my life so far. Off to the cafe to do some writing, then to the gym where I had a much better session that Tuesday, though still not up to maximum revs yet. Home, ate kale and noodles, finished The Handmaid's Tale , which was excellent. What a writer Margaret Atwood can be. Astonishing and prescient. ...