rainy day (the film of disquiet)

rainy day (rain all day)

except for sunday morning (and then again on monday).

except it didn't rain all day. in the afternoon it stopped. 

horsemouth predicted more of that flooding business. but he went to check the stream running off the common - that's normally a good indicator. no flow yet that must mean the soil is still soaking up the rain/ it's pooling on the surface and hasn't reached run-off levels of rainfall yet. 

so jean-luc godard had a plan to film fernando pessoa's the book of disquiet 

‘a sort of song of gestures, the gestures of cinema’

but it never happened. it joined a long list of his unmade and abandoned projects. it was due to be filmed in portugal. 

today has no particular connection with joe henderson and alice coltrane but it does have a connection with mike oldfield hergest ridge was released on this day in 1974 and it does have a connection with boyd and ruth-mae rivers who were filmed this day in 1978 by alam lomax. 

soon one third of the year left (the embers). 

soon the autumn equinox. 

the morning

decentish morning so far. horsemouth has been out to the chickens. maybe a trip up the hill to deliver the eggs. 

outside it is raining (it is yesterday also)

outside it is raining (it is yesterday also)

horsemouth dug up some potatoes and then he picked some plums. 

the winter is due to be an el nino winter (thus more rain - maybe). 

ok the rain is over (for now). 

in a bit horsemouth will go out and lock up the chickens but for the moment one of them is still wandering about on the banking. (ok he's done it). their enclosure is a quagmire once again (that didn't take long). 

now (yesterday evening as will be) there's a full moon out of the window. the clouds have just obscured it. 

over on new river radio the wave debb show (which horsemouth is currently listening to this being a friday night). 

what will you find in the horsemouth folk archive?

a garden party

thunder blossoming gorgeously

a narrative that accounts for its own production 

the almshouses of hereford (no.1 in a series) 

 a dutch barn assembled by f.h. dale of leominster

an alhibi

outside it is raining (it is the morning by now). horsemouth misses the sunshine. he was imagining holding forth about john fahey at a gig of some sort. 

garden party

'if you don't think climate change is damaging the world try malaga airport at ten on a summer's evening...' 

it's the 28th august 2005 and monty don is having a garden party or rather, in his absence, his garden has had a party. (monty's point above is less about climate change and more about over-tourism). 

'the cardoons and hostas had been terribly ravaged by slugs. bindweed, thistles and nettles nestled insouciantly with their carefully cultivated cousins...' 

monty (montagu) don and his wife have been working on the garden since they bought the house in 1991 'a derelict house with a two acre field.' monty is a writer who gardens/ a gardener who writes. 

so  much for horsemouth's writing from yesterday.

from here on in entirely written in the morning.  

horsemouth has been chopping the creeper and ivy off the front of the house (but first some photos). and he brought the recycling bin back up the drive. he has pretty much excused himself watering on the basis of rain. 

the starting point for the growth was about half way up the house - the main aim is to stop it growing into the chimney pots (horsemouth has thus caught it just in time).  ideally he would have caught it before it got up onto the roof tiles. 

the bits further up the chimney will require a longer ladder (or horsemouth to lean out of the window). not all sides of the house are similarly afflicted. 

tonight the wave debb show live from new river studios 8-10pm. in the day horsemouth will finish cutting back the creeper on the sides of the house. he may wander the eggs up the hill. 

'thunder blossoms gorgeously...' (and up with the lark)

'thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads.

great, hollow, bell-like flowers,

rumbling in the wind,

stretching clappers to strike our ears . .

full-lipped flowers

bitten by the sun

bleeding rain

dripping rain like golden honey—

and the sweet earth flying from the thunder.'

- jean toomer, storm ending. 

last night a moon low in the trees.

early this morning, a thunder storm. pretty much as toomer describes it.

out there now, misty, grey, raining. (horsemouth is excused watering. it looks as if watering will never be needed again)

kilvert is winding down to leave clyro. monty don, on the other hand, offers us a year in his garden at ivington (near leominster), pots and walls (he's bad at remembering to water the plants in pots).  

horsemouth does 7am but he doesn't do up with the lark these days. monty don is an up early type. 

ok so horsemouth has a chunk he wrote yesterday which he may use later (or he may bin it off or exile it to goodreads so that he can have an entirely written in the morning blogpost (except for the toomer poem). 

sun ship (a narrative that accounts for its own production)

it is the anniversary of the recording in 1965 of sun ship by john coltrane and the classic quartet - it is the moment before take off into interstellar space. a week later coltrane will record first meditations with this band and then discard it only to re-record it later with pharoah sanders and rashid ali.

soon the embers and the autumn equinox but first, probably, rain. 

'a narrative that accounts for its own production'

so the burgeoning field of autofiction is described. 

all these diaries. all these autobiographies. 

all those ghostwriters labouring below decks (wax in their ears). 

burnham has backtracked on using housing funds to generate only social homes. like starmer and reeves he has tied his own hands. 

horsemouth has started on the separation by christopher priest which is excellent so far (p.74 at first sitting). horsemouth has the gollancz paperback edition with the twin boys on the cover.

the morning

well it's raining out there. horsemouth had almost come to believe that it was no longer possible. 

he's up to page 238 with the separation - a novel that keeps looking like it is going to resolve nicely in an ian mcewan sort of way but then throws you a curveball. none of the testimonies can be made to add up. not all the stories can be true - can they?

the almshouses of hereford (the plan to get into town and how it went)

the almshouses of hereford (no.1 in a series)

price's almshouses and chapel 90-112 whitecross road

founded 1665.

this wasn't the purpose of his visit to hereford (his purpose was books) but seeing as he was there he took a few photos. it may take him a while longer to sort out the detail there being many slightly more famous william prices (including one who was the originator of our modern habits of cremation). 

horsemouth used the old railway line a fair bit at the start - it would have brought him out near to the hospice shop (but he'd diverted off by that point). 

books - accessions diary 24th august 2026

- the foot of clive (john berger) - £2.49 oxfam

- the separation (christopher priest) - £1.00 hospice

- in a lonely street: film noir, genre, masculinity (frank krutnik) - £1.00 hospice

- the ivington diaries (monty don) - £1.00 hospice

this being a great 'we went bankrupt and started gardening' story. horsemouth may even use it to aid his own diarising.

as you can see the hospice served him very well

indeed he could have picked up another beautiful and beautifully illustrated monty don (around the world in 80 gardens that sort of thing) for another quid but his head wasn't quite in the game yet. he got the monty don for his mum (honest). he thinks it will go down well.

he read a little of foot on the bus, a little of a lonely street before bed last night, the separation  may take him a while to get to. ivington he read the introduction. 

soon we re-enter the embers. soon after the autumn equinox. 

this morning a dream about a woman saying colin and a dream about living in a big party venue squat with sten. 

today a plan to get into town

during his eggs up the hill mission horsemouth paused to photograph some more corrugated iron structures. 

here we have a dutch barn (uk type) as assembled by f.h. dale of leominster (who, interestingly enough, are still going). 

horsemouth was listening to roy scranton talking about the dark mountain manifesto and paul kingsnorth. ('it comes in waves'). it's an interview hobbled by poor sound quality (and a certain amount of mutual incomprehension). 

later horsemouth watched much of sorcerer, the william friedkin remake of the wages of fear, four convicts transport sweaty nitro-glycerine 200 miles along treacherous roads (and all with a great tangerine dream soundtrack). 

and so to bed.

today a plan to get into town.