under another sun

Day started at around 4 am with disturbed cats. The black and white bastard had let itself in and was busy spraying the place and eating all the cat food. It fled as I went downstairs. Our cats traumatised. Locked the door of the cat flap, which is not working properly, and returned to bed, and lay awake trying to decide how to murder the black and white cat. Lorraine utterly awake too. Eventually we put on a meditation tape and fell asleep to it.  One of the dispiriting consequence of yesterday's account bonanza was realising just how much money I was paying for broadband. Lorraine found an enormously better deal from Virgin, and I applied for this. Then phoned up BT to cancel my account, who then countered with an even better deal than Virgin, which I accepted, and then had to have interminable conversations with Virgin to cancel the order I had made an hour earlier. All calls to these telecoms companies requiring at least 10 mins of waiting before you could speak to anyone -- fo...

An alien ginger cat broke into the house last night resulting in a tremendously loud cat fight at around 4:30. Lorraine sprang up. I dragged myself out of bed eventually, and saw a ginger cat bolting out of the house. It must have made it in through the microchip catflap hot on Brian's tail A fitful doze. Both up early, and Lorraine spilling things inside the fridge and then spilling soya milk over my trousers. Lorraine dropped me off in time for the 7:17 into London. Bumped into my old art director Mike, who I dubbed 'the gnome' on this blog when I was trying to keep everyone anonymous. Good to see him, and we were able to have a chat on the tube. Mike looks unchanged, despite it being ages since we spoke. Work okay, though it seemed I was about to be released back into the wild for the week, but some work was found, and I ended up working through lunch (only ten minutes' lunchtime walk,  chiz) and left work a bit late. Heard from Sarah B who had sad news about her...

Up with Lorraine, and made breakfast and got to work right away on poems. Interrupted as I worked quietly in my study by a terrifying noise. Turns out an intruder cat had got through the cat flap and was giving vent to a bloodcurdling howl. It left pronto when it heard me, but this does explain the chewed through dreamies, and a tupperware of cat biscuits knocked onto the floor yesterday. Off to Stained Glass, where I had a good time. I am not going to be able to finish my window in the time I have left, so we are all going to do more. I did make good progress today, however, as I am doing the most difficult part, which is the doubling up of glass with wide heart lead. I am learning a lot from Ben. He started, spontaneously, talking to me about astrology today. We seem to be on a similar wavelength. A quick coffee with Mick and Chris, fellow glass students, and then off to get my hair cut. From there some food shopping and back home, not long before Sonia was leaving. When Lorraine...

Lorraine full of purpose this morning, and we marched about the house doing things, such as replacing the existing cat flap with our one, which reads the cat's chips allowing only them into the house. This becoming a necessity as the bruiser of a Ginger Tom that squats like a malevolent garden Buddha under the laurel bush at the end of the garden, has infiltrated a couple of times making our cats exceedingly nervous. Betty having a duvet day today, but this did not prevent us bursting into Betty's room brandishing a rubber glove and a spanner to try to shift the radiator control. I at least managed to turn the radiator on. Lorraine sorting out curtains, and later ordering plants. We then did a top to toe survey of our house starting in the dungeon, and discussing what needs improving, and how we see the rooms evolving in the next few months. Lorraine began a new red notebook too. We were contrasting this with last two years of house move limbo. A much more exciting state of a...

Up to North Acton again. Despite a hideously early start, quite enjoying the bustle through London and meeting some new, likeable, people.  The work reactive, but the people compensate. Listening to The Count of Monte Cristo constantly on my journeys. It goes on forever. Have stupidly lost my keys, and as  Lorraine went to Kent to visit her parents, her brother and nephew when I arrived home in Brighton I had to amuse myself for an hour or so, having a single pint and, disgracefully, some Kentucky Fried Rats before she returned. Haven't sat in a KFC for about 15 years. Interesting clientele on London Road. And not in a good way. Lorraine had taken Basil with her. Basil is the lovable fat cat who refuses to squeeze through the catflap, necessitating cat trays indoors, which the other two cats then use. Cleaning them is like getting thigh deep in the Augean Stables, which I will certainly not miss. However I will miss Basil, for she sat on me a lot, and had a lovely if vacan...

Chip Suey My former stepfather Gerald, who has not proactively contacted me in 30 years, sent me a Linked-in request today to join his business network. Didn't see that one coming. A hard to describe off-kilterness to the day. Cold moving onto the chest now. Bah. Working on the mystery prose for a few hours. Then called Janet to find out how she was and have a brief chat about politics and so on. Then into the city abuzz with people who have just been on a protest march through town. Vanloads of policemen to ensure that the lawfully protesting public sector workers: those selfish nurses, teachers, local council workers and so on who are having their pensions reneged on, didn't turn violent. After I met Dipak for a breeze-shooting session at Marwood's cafe. Discussing musician stuff (I'm an impostor) and hearing a rough recording of the Shakespeare's latest sonnet. This followed by a rendezvous with Lorraine at the Twitten to stuff a final box into the boot of the ca...

Chips on their shoulders Groggy this morning after yesterday's lively night. Soon off to Top Cats Vets at Patcham, where the pleasant cat-faced receptionist sold L and I some plug-in pheremones to smooth the nerves of cats, in what will be a challenging few weeks for them. I asked if they had them for people too. Lorraine also bought a catflap which works on the chips our cybercats have on their shoulders under their pelts. This will allowing them in and nobody else. I am apprehensive about how Calliope will get on with Basil and Brian. After the vet business Lorraine and I walked through Brighton for an hour or so, Lorraine pausing to buy a dishwasher, and me popping into the Basketmakers to retrieve the card I had left behind the bar from the night before. Funny, because I am known there, I had no qualms or worries about this. Then some shopping, popping into the bookshop, and feeling galled at the entire shelf of Skulduggery Pleasance books, and had a mild-mannered afternoon wa...

Annoying cluckers Infernal night. Calliope speared a claw into the sole of my foot, then instantly hid out of grabbing range under the centre of the bed. Full of an Old Testament wrath as I seized the appalling weasel and once free she hared downstairs like Lucifer plunging into the dark. Being woken this way at 3:55am made me furious, and I ended up reading for some time afterwards before slipping into series of nightmares. The cat keeping a rather low profile for what remained of the night. Work all day. French work this morning trying to brand a new tourism campaign, then a couple of chats about atrial fibrillation and strokes, plus a teleconference about the branding work I'm doing for the new agency. All fine, but increasingly full of cold and jadedness as the day wore on. After work went to the supermarket where I was looking at a piece of smoked haddock, when two women near me started clucking like chickens. One searching my face as she clucked if looking for inspiration. We...

Catmurderer Up at seven and off to the smoke. On the train I met one of my fellow Twitten denizens Martin,who works for a hotel chain as an interior designer, and we chatted till Gatwick. It was fortunate he was there as I had left my wallet at home, and he slipped me £10, enabling me to buy tea.  Work was frustrating and looooong. My computer did not work for several hours, then a long slogathon of tetchy meetings, and looking through thousands of photolibrary images for the concepts. Made me think of Nev who, when we used to work on the Dell account together, used to loathe trying to find computery images that didn't suck.  I left them to it at 10pm and was at home at 11:30. Found Calliope traumatised and wired on my return, and other cats had been in the house.  Sleep was hard to come by, not helped by a large white cat breaking into the house and yowlingin the kitchen at 3AM. Full of murderous rage, I rushed downstairs and drove the huge beast out. It was insolent and looked at...

Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun An enjoyable Bank Holiday, intermittent rain all day on the holiday town of Brighton. I got up eager to write. This enthusiasm was dampened by my computer problems, which after an hour of struggling spontaneously righted themselves. Having written nothing, I walrussed off to the gym, which quickly made me feel better despite it being packed. Passed some families in rainproof clothes who decided to brave it for the day. Bless them. Returned to cook a breakfast for myself and Lorraine who spent the day in my dressing gown, till leaving at 3.00pm, while I spent the day intermittently working on my Pharma job and reading the papers, or doing some shopping in the rain. Lorraine for some reason shuns umbrellas. Inspired by Randolph, I spent some of the evening in the company of Schopenhauer and Calliope the cat. Breaking off to walk up the hill to feed Anton and Anna's cats. Suddenly very popular with them when I arrived. This aphorism, fr...

Enter Calliope, from a manbag At last something even more attention seeking in the Twitten than I am... Calliope the kitten. A morning mooching around in Brighton, where Lorraine and I bumped into Anton and Anna, and my Godbairns. We saw some of the festival that was going on as the streets had been closed in part of the town. This included bands, and people wandering about with signs saying "free hugs" (I scored one), and lots of children's activities, like chalking the road, and painting Wendy houses. Particularly liked the big green elephants by the Pavilion. Lorraine drove us to Eastbourne for the main business of the day. A visit a lovely Polish (I think) lady, and her family who had cats aplenty. In fact they were mad for cats: there were two litters of kittens, and ten adult cats. The kittens were all extremely pretty, but I handled a few before I chose mine on the basis that it seemed chilled and happy to be handled, and it has beautiful colouring. It is seven wee...

A wild cat chase Today was cat day. Scored a local advertiser rag, where there were cats aplenty. Fortunately Lorraine was with me, and drove me off to one place where there was a kitten, a fluffy little tabby, which looked nice enough, but was a bit scabby, and something about this slightly repelled me. Other kittens contacts proved elusive. Amazing how many folks will advertise something only to be unobtainable. Lorraine then drove me to the RSPCA where I filled out a form to possibly adopt a second hand cat. (Or as I used to write for The Blue Cross pet charity "a cat that through no fault of its own needs another start in life"). Before I can adopt a used cat however I have to have my house inspected by an RSPCA visitor for catskin rugs etc. Quite heartrending to walk past the dog pens. I don't even like dogs much. But unlike the rehoming centres I had visited before, where all the dogs had long faces (lurchers, greyhounds and the like) these were likable dogs with no...

Waterloo and cat terrifying Up with the sparrows, feeling vaguely coldy, and headed off to Waterloo to Reuben's agency. I am doing a couple of days freelancing, though Reuben wasn't there today. Quite nice to be back in the South Bank, near where I worked in my IBM years. Pleasant agency and nice people, and interesting work too. Also spoke to Simon, and the Cat with the Hat today. Walking back to Waterloo station after work, I discovered Brian outside the Fire Station pub with some chums. He was quite well refreshed, and trying to entice me to stay to drink with them. However I didn't, as I was being a responsible Godparent as today is both Bob and Anton's birthday (they are like two peas in a pod) and I had promised to babysit for local Virgo Anton. Sat downstairs at Anton's place trying to finish my Croydon article, but feeling braindead and continually diverted by their two new kittens tumbling about the place. Fortunately the bairns upstairs slept like bab...

A trickle of tranquility A lazy Sunday. Spent some time sitting in Lorraine's back garden, which has a water feature. Drifted off peacefully into a meditative state with some sun on my face, my eyes closed, and listening to the music of the trickling water. Profoundly nice. Meanwhile Lorraine's cats roamed and raced about as Lorraine picked at the bushes in her garden. One of them, namely Brian, is very pretty indeed.

The cat's miaow Beginning another week freelancing at my old agency. Feeling better adjusted psychologically to it this week. Sloped off at lunch with the French Bloke who is now working for the agency next door. We sat in a quiet Riverside studios eating a delicate thali and shooting the breeze over a glass of wine. He was very enthusiastic about the redesign of his house, and drew his plans in some detail in one of my notebooks. He is also really enjoying his new job, so all is well. Spoke to Mum for a bit at lunch time too, and got a nice email from Joan which contained the picture, below, of the cats and a dogs of Deviation Road living in perfect harmony. Joan was urging me to get a cat. It would have to be one from a sanctuary that needed re-homing. In fact, cats have been playing on my mind, especially as I have been writing letters about taking care of abandoned cats in the last few working days. Once things settle down for a bit, I might get one. Especially as I'm worki...

Cat plague Hitomi is coming to London next week on business, and I got a note today asking me if I will meet her for breakfast. Hitomi is angelic. She met me at Narita airport and guided me through Tokyo into my seat the bullet train. Be good to see her in blighty. A day spent doing housework - and sleeping. Saw Lorraine briefly this evening, while her parents were at a show. Mostly though, I was plagued by a feline confidence trickster. It snuck into my house three times, and roamed about as if it owned the place, even scampering up the stairs to check out my bath before I could shoo it out. It managed to climb onto the ledge and peer at me pleadingly while I was in the kitchen. Then it took up residence in my back garden in the rain and mewed outside my door pitifully. After many hours of this, I was completely taken in and was considering giving it some tuna, and calling it Chaplin, because it looked so pathetic, when I heard someone calling a cat, and it promptly melted away. Below...

This is England Stayed at Lorraine's last night, and was woken by a cat placing its paw on my forearm. Disorientated, I opened my eyes in the middle of a dream, and saw a face about six inches from mine, and in the half-light I mistook it for a small and intense child. This, for some reason, scared the bejasus out of me. I haven't been as alarmed by a cat since Paddy the Ghost Cat pattered into my bedroom. Did a morning's work as God's own copywriter for the religious charity I'd been doing a bit for through my old agency. Thanks to feline intervention I found I was up exceedingly early so also got quite a bit done on my Skeleton story, have written over 20,000 words of it now, which is er, cracking along. Another swim, the fourth of the week, left me feeling pretty shattered and still aghast at how fat and out of condition I am. Rented a movie about skinheads in the 80s called This is England which I thought was a really good, excellently acted, a great script, an...