'suddenly, at lunch, it occurred to him that he should visit his mother...'

'yesterday for the first time in ever so long an indisputable ability to do good work. and yet wrote only the first page of the 'mother' chapter.'  - franz kafka, diaries, 8th december 1914. 

this was published as a fragment in an appendix to the german edition of the trial. here's a link to the kafka project that makes fragments like these available and then (to google translate ) we get...

'suddenly, at lunch, it occurred to him that he should visit his mother...'  

kafka is getting there though. his prose is becoming drier and more precise. what he writes ends up as pieces we know. 

benjamin zephaniah has died

horsemouth saw him live twice he thinks. cath asked him to recite this one (and he did) at a poetry gig up in wood green probably 85 or 86, almost certainly a benefit) and horsemouth saw him with a band at chat's palace (top gig - with the poison girls?) almost certainly another benefit. 

yesterday horsemouth made one attempt to go for a walk (but a cold rain was thrown in his face and this discouraged him). 

this morning the surveyor visits.  staying with horsemouth's early morning thoughts, rather than dealing with the items on his list, this provides an opportunity for horsemouth (and his mum) to have a think about the property for over the next few years. stuff will need fixing and replacing and horsemouth just isn't that practical. 

ideally horsemouth would plant more trees but it is not his decision to make. this would require some fencing (to stop the sheep eating the young trees - as they are won't to do). left ungrazed and unattended fields round here have a tendency to revert to giant briar patches (fairly quickly). we would need to get into the mysteries of succession. the field next door has been neglected for a number of decades but  it has not (miraculously) turned into mature woodland. horsemouth would like to get into carbon sequestration and out of feeding the neighbours sheep. 

he'd also like to get out of heating the property with oil fuelled heating and a wood burner (but he suspects that's a pipe-dream) and probably insulating it more. 

of course this would mean reversing a lot of the work his parents undertook when they bought the place back in the 80ies. his mum has apple trees that yield too many fruit, dead trees that need taking down.