Today I did get a bit of the NaNovel done, then in the evening over to the Hammersmith Apollo for Deep Purple, who seem to be self-parodying some of the time. Ending on an understandably audience-participation 'Smoke on the Water'. And there isn't even any decent beer in the venue.

Tags: music, writing
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: none

After the weekend my guitar playing is much improved. The Susie Self method seems to work (and if you've heard that surname before, Susie is Will's cousin.) Not only does I now play better I am also some way into writing a song which I started on the weekend.

Part of the reason it works is the atmosphere. They have turned their Norfolk house (they live in London during the week) into a centre for workshops in music and painting, and the weekend includes walks which are vital to clear the head and get the blood pounding. So on the way up I was equipped with walking boots, rucksack, and guitar. Who is this person? I have no idea. I was only one of two to go up by train (there are few students - six on our course - which must help as well) and despite the taxi not being where we expected it, and the driver not having heard of the village, and going straight past the house in the dark and rain - we got there in the end. On the way back there were no trains from Kings Lynn due to the drivers not wanting to work on Sundays, poor dears, so it was a coach to Cambridge complete with screaming child in the seats opposite. At Cambridge, I slung guitar and small bag and headed for the train ... having forgotten my rucksack.
The weekend was billed as 'guitar and singing' but there wasn't very much singing. Some but not much. I needed to concentrate on the guitar anyway. Food was good even if I have never eaten so much salmon (or maple syrup pancakes for breakfast - Susie's husband Michael Christie is Canadian and rolled out the speciality on Sunday). The walk on Saturday - inspiring landscapes here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16156673@N00/4092827419/ and on Sunday round the village here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/16156673@N00/4092827417/in/photostream/

Current Location: home
Current Music: Radio 3

It would help my NaNoWriMo effort if I hadn't had to work until 2140 last night. Like most things website-related, updating ours (after it got slagged off on The Politics Show last Sunday) was akin to kicking dead whales down the beach. No supper for me either though I did manage some writing. Word count now is 6636 which is lower than it should be.

Fortunately I have today off. This is good, going to Norfolk this weekend for a guitar and voice workshop is even better.

The lodger is only here for a couple more weeks. I get the house back to myself but it's been good having her around (and the money helps also). Also my classic-rock-loving pub friend and commute companion in the mornings is heading off to Weybridge with her partner so I won't have her around any more. I don't have her phone number (he won't let her give it to anyone in Kingston; ).

Am going along to hear Deep Purple at the Hammersmith Odeon, er, Apollo in November! Though I'm told it isn't the 'real' DP it should still rock. Then it's the Mars Volta in December.

Last night, up to the Hog in the Pound where I talk to a lot more people than previously - last week I left feeling I never talk to anyone. Susan is still convinced she and I are going to be an item but we aren't, sorry. The other week she brought in a book about 'relationship horoscopes' and showed me that she'd worked out mine. Tempted to tell her she'd got my date of birth wrong.

Went into Kingston (Town) this morning. The church roof is covered in pigeons. The town is like the monochrome cover of an old album, something with people in fur-edged coats and unusual hats. My usual cafe at the southern end of Market Place has closed down so I head for 'Wrap it' and have my usual espresso with a small amount of hot water. I get home and there is another pigeon watching me from the pyracantha bush. I am avoiding the phone calls of salesmen following up an unsuccessful pitch the other day - they really don't like losing, do they?

Work is deadline-fuelled, I finish at six many days and yesterday it was 6.40. I was already tired as there was an open mic session at the Fairfield on Thursday night - I called in there after the writing class and didn't get home till half past midnight.

The lodger is leaving in November - it's been fun but in winter time we are more likely to get in each other's way. Still, her job down here is ending and so she's off. Then my commute companion / pal from the Fairfield - she who is into DP and Led Zep and all that - is moving out of town. She and I spend many happy times raiding the jukebox in the Fairfield for good tunes, and reading the paper together on the train in the morning, but that is coming to an end too. What I am I going to do?

Current Location: home
Current Music: Deep Purple, "Child In Time"

Last night, managed to get rid of a salesman trying to sell me a 'revolutionary new product' for weatherproofing the exterior of my house. After two hours plus and him giving me a quote. They are tenacious buggers though and I just wanted to keep him to what he'd originally said, 'I can just give you a quote for the work'. Knew he'd try to get me to sign up and I didn't. Not least because as I told him I don't have much money at present and the last thing I want is a £580 per month - for 2 years - standing order. Then he starts going on about a £310 a month quote if I get the work done right away, only I spot a little '96' by it, and guess what, that figure is for 96 months! Of course they want you to sign up right away but I didn't so there. And looking at reports of this company's behaviour, I don't think I will. What part of 'I don't have £15k' don't they understand?

On doorsteppers:

"Last night two Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door. I told them I didn't see the accident".

If I want a builder I can get a phone number from someone in the pub, and I already have. Hardly anyone in Dougie's but after the hard sell I needed a change and went there and talked to Kate the barmaid and also one of the locals.

Don't want to go to my writing class tonight.

Current Location: home
Current Music: Church of the Drive Thru Elvis - 'Candyfloss'

So I'm back at work after two weeks in Greece. The first week it rained and people were forced to evacuate their huts and take shelter in the big house. Week 2 was much better but the group didn't seem to 'gel' the way last year's did. Highlights: learning to sing and being on stage with a choir; sitting on the rocks by the sea in the early morning and writing automatic writing; paddling on a surfboard; snorkelling and being attacked by a pelican. Lowlights, anything involving the bar and beer that wasn't even nice.

I've signed up to do a residential weekend singing and guitar course in Norfolk in November.

Last week I was dreading going back to work but it's been ok so far.

Last night I broke the two-month fast of performed music - apart from buskers, and songs at Skyros over the fortnight, I'd heard no live music since Nine Black Alps in July until I went to Camden in the company of Laura, Jon, Liz and Greg, and heard Circulus. Not the first time I'd heard them but this was better from what I remember. Back by night buses and arrived home at 2.30.

Listening to Muse's new album as suggested by Jon - yes, bits do sound like Queen!

Tags: holidays, home, music
Current Location: United Kingdom, Kingston Upon Thames
Current Music: Muse, "United States of Eurasia"

Well, by not going to the Hog in the Pound I avoided one more dreary rendition of 'Angels' and people who really can't sing doing so (not saying I can but there are levels and levels of it). Instead went to Streatham, or as it is occasionally dubbed St Reatham, and to the Earl Ferrers. There was beer (Sambrook's Wandle), and Pool, and Cake, because it was a birthday. In four months time she'll be a record (33-1/3). Nearly everyone was South London there, I could at least claim to have been born in Merton ('where's that?' - 'Wimbledon. The borough should be called the borough of Wimbledon then people would know where it is'). Even the beer was local, it's from Wandsworth.

And I knew it was possible to get back from there to here by direct bus. Not that the TfL site would tell you that. It was a bit of a pain finding the stop for the 57 but it is there, round the back somewhere although probably in a straight line if you knew.

The lodger got back while I was still in bed - I just saw her briefly when I descended for a cup of tea and she was getting ready to leave, so now I have the house to myself again for the weekend.

Tags: beer, birthdays, south london
Current Location: front room
Current Music: washing machine

It might be a downside to having a lodger that there is now less room in my bedroom (as the desk is in there) but necessity is the mother of piano stools, or should I say, I have one on order. Having lugged the writing chair up there I just lugged it down again as you do really need to be able to get round the bed. Piano stool seems like a good idea, but just now I am in the reclining chair in the living room with the portable on my lap, which is an even better one.
Have been swimming this evening, first time this week, good apart from a mouthful of chlorinated water - what is it about the crawl that means I swallow water? It doesn't leave enough time for breathing. When doing the breaststroke I take one large breath and then do several strokes with my head underwater, but this is less clearcut when doing the crawl. Still, adults-only laned sessions and an improvement schedule beckon. Went three times last week (Sat, Mon, Thu) which was overdoing it a bit especially as there was (and is) still a painful bit at the back of my left heel courtesy of fast walking in beatle boots the other day.
This weekend? Don't know. There is a local CAMRA barbeque on Sunday.
Work is not too bad as I have finished work at four today and yesterday, and have also produced a job tracker database so I know what I am supposed to be doing.

Current Location: living room

Today I have been to Littlehampton, and spent much time on the beach and also in a pub drinking Pimm's. Also taking photographs which are here:

http://www.flickr.comPhotos

Current Location: home

Some mania drives me to walk to the sports centre for a swim while it's raining hard. I find it isn't laned swimming yet; go to the steam room, and the gym, but then go to the pool. That's three times this week.
Meanwhile the lodger isn't home yet although she's been more in evidence than recently. And if the worst thing you can say about a lodger is that you don't see them as much as you'd like, well that is no bad thing. She is away at weekends also as she goes back home to her house in a small town which sounds nice also. This house meanwhile is less full of clutter than of late; three trips to the dump with a hand cart, an emptied wheelie bin of rubbish and a recycling box full of paper plus some shreddings in the compost bin have made sure of that.
I don't know how the blackberries at the bottom of the garden will fare with all this rain, but the apples are becoming red and ripe, and the pears ripening along the gnarled branches of the pear tree. The garden is becoming like my grandma's old garden in Lancing, with its fruit trees. The house was called 'Treetops' which makes it sound more exotic than it was, but this house was called 'Sunrise' by its previous occupant who presumably occupied the back bedroom as I do, even though the front bedroom is larger - back bedroom faces east over the gardens, which are small enough, but together make a tidy passel of lawns, bushes and trees. Well, an untidy one really, and all the better for it. Foxes, I expect, skulk beneath the wildlife hedge I planted. I do not give them names, as they are wild animals, but becoming bolder. A while back one stood on the path to the back door and gazed levelly at me, as though it really was the totem animal of John Michell who had died recently. On balance, the fox kills rats and perhaps keeps the cats from thinking they have all the gardens to themselves.
We shall have a lot of apples. She or I will know how to do things with apples. The last year but one it was apple cake, apple pies, apple crumble, bags of apples given away to anyone who would listen. Last year, no apples at all.
This rain will fill the pond up again, I hope. The frogs which were so keen the first year didn't survive the depredations of the cat population, though they lurk where it's damp and come out again. The tall green spikes of pond plants still stand, and in tiny niches under another length of wildlife hedge there are things I planted (woodruff?). It's like that here; spots of colour struggle up through the green.

Tags: house, rain
Current Location: back bedroom
Current Music: rain