under another sun

Another day working at home, which enabled Lorraine and I to have a lightning tidy up before the house photographer came around to snap the place in the teeming rain. If lightning can hobble that is. Otherwise a day of grafting on a bazillion bits of copy, broken off by hobbling painfully to the quacks and arranging a blood test next week prior to a change of pills.  Glimpsed myself shambling to the desk on their CCTV system: a limping, hunched ancient fat man. Briefly sat in the waiting room next to a woman with a bottle of vodka projecting from her pocket. I retreated soberly into listening to Mark Ellen's book Rock Stars Stole My Life! which I'd downloaded earlier in the day. Light, nicely written nostalgic treat for music lovers of a certain age. I once met Mark Ellen in a Chiswick swimming pool. He was every bit as pleasant and chatty as he seemed presenting the post-Whispering Bob  The Old Grey Whistle Test .  His enthusiastic and self-depreciating style is ende...

Got up for a wee and notice the time on Lorraine's beside alarm clock. Almost six. Shortly after, it made its infernal parping, Lorraine got up, dressed, showered, fed the cats, had breakfast and so on. I sat up blearily looking at my laptop and sipping the tea Lorraine had brought me. Then Lorraine said, have you seen the time? For some reason it was 4:44 and the alarm clock was wrong. Shaken by this trauma, when I eventually got up I was full of murderous fantasies about what would happen to the solicitors if my house sale did not complete today. Went off to the gym again, to work out my grrring, and by the time I was home it was lunch time and as I ate a large ham and salad sandwich, I was emailed by one of the solicitor's underlings to say the sale had completed.  I had so little trust in them that I had to check my bank account online before I could believe it. A huge amount of stress gradually lifting from my shoulders. And a glee at not having to deal any more...

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. ...

A fairly relaxed day, although this gave me more time to fret about the house sale, and deal with the dribs and drabs of requests coming from the solicitors. Selling a house must be like childbirth, you forget all about the unpleasantness once it is done. The intermittent work in London this week, plus this background hum of stress is playing havoc with my concentration, so I am finding pressing on with the book difficult. To the gym but am carrying some sort of bug at the moment and stopped after 25 minutes feeling a tad nauseous. Home via the supermarket to buy some curly kale which I strangely fancied. Had a concoction of kale, mushrooms, a few prawns, a chilli and noodles in miso soup. Strangely delicious. I must be craving kale. This has never happened before. Home and had the luxury of an afternoon nap. Lorraine out late again today, but I met Anton for a drink. Had a really good evening with him, and we wandered into the Northern Lights, the Scandinavian Bar in town, which h...

Much of the day violently pinching myself. At long last the contracts have been exchanged and the Twitten house deal completes next Friday. All that remains is to clear the Twitten loft of the dozens of dried corpses I have stored there…. I mean the books and rugs and bits of shelves. Only then when the deal is done will I be finally able to celebrate with the idiot glee this release from a blood sucking purgatory of haggling, negotiation, solicitors moving at the speed of arthritic snails, estate agents, letting agents, plumbers, wall experts, roof repairers this deserves. Lorraine brought me two paracetamol and a cup of tea in bed this morning. As a ward sister she found this to cure wooden legs, and it certainly worked on my man cold today. A happy day at home, baking bread, cleaning aquaria and so on. Lorraine and I went out to the Shahi for a quick and sorely needed curry tonight. And today, I was finally able to get on with editing our wedding photos, and spending the day loo...

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...

Back up to Tavistock Square. Train late. Worked very hard on lots of digital copy with charming people, but this made the day pass in a flash, only squeezing in time to talk to my solicitor about the house sale, correspond with the buyers and so on. The house sale drags at me like a giant tapeworm. Today the buyer's solicitors took a turn to be squirm hatefully in the GI tract of the sale. Nice chats with Matty boy, Pat and First Matie. Then a draggy journey home. Someone under a train somewhere, meant delays, two trains replaced by one small one, and crammed with passengers. Arrived home feeling tetchy and stressed. Lorraine returned home from singing in the choir to compose an email to the Cricketers, after an unsatisfactory reply. Rain enthusiastic. Saturday will probably be wet. Gah.