under another sun

Spent the morning refining my mind maps, designed to give me an overview of what I need to sort out. I also spent some time poring over the writers and artists yearbook for children, going through publisher by publisher. The vast majority of publishers won't take unsolicited manuscripts, which is why having an agent, a hunt I have already embarked on, is the way to go. Spoke to Mum who was worried about Mason. He seems to have had a bad reaction to a new prescription, and was quite unwell and out of it yesterday and only a little improved today. I went for a long walk and ended up in the park, and selected a bench looking at the wildflowers planted in the park for a bit of a meditation, as my head was full of monkey mind chatter about peanuts etc. I sat down, composed myself and it immediately began raining. I noticed another man meditating on a bench near me, but he was made of sterner stuff continuing in the rain with a peaceful look on his face. I went into the café, and d...

So the day working on bovine mastitis. Once work was done, I then spent some time sorting out Defenders of Guernsey to make it kindle ready. Actually not too much of a laborious task, although this was only for a text of 13.4 thousand words. Took myself for an hour's walk having been manacled to my desk all day. Down to the park again which was looking rather glorious, sunny but a stiff wind. Lorraine working late then going straight to her Pilates class, which was a one-to-one. I fed her a chicken stew of my own devising, which went down very well. Below the meadow flowers in the park, a glimpse into the walled garden, and a gateway sculpture between the Preston Twins, two large elm trees that have managed to evade Dutch Elm Disease.

At last a good day's work on the book. Head full of Zen stuff as a consequence and did an ensō this morning, which I found rather fun, and instructive as I found myself writing about them. A very nice letter from Helen Moser my new pen friend in Germany, who has shown my poem about Heidegger to Dr Denker the head of the Heidegger archive close to where she works as a translator, and he liked it. At three, and having worked steadily since eight, the brain was empty. What better time then to zoom off to see Janet and Ken, via the Real Patisserie where I scored some incredibly delicious strawberry tarts. Long, wide ranging chat with Janet and Ken and Huss over aforementioned tarts and cups of tea. Home, and Lorraine was back home at a good time at last. We cooked and ate steamed veggies, fish and brown rice then as it was still light and the weather suddenly improving we sauntered around the park for an hour, watching a noisy jays versus rook war on the top of a large tree, and ...