that honesty may always be the best policy but, it is important to remember, it is not always guaranteed to work.

oh dear. two steps forward (six steps back). horsemouth has just lost his temper again. the proximate issue was whether the runner bean plants need to be hardened up by being left out at night before they can be planted out. (this is horsemouth's understanding). 

he has compromised. he has put them out in the day. 

now the thing with horsemouth (and you will find this strange from someone who engaged for so long with the communal endeavour) is that he likes to just get on with things, he doesn't like to have to explain or justify what he does. he likes to do things when the spirit moves him and as he sees fit.  he's not really a consensus-checking  direct democrat at all but more of an experimentalist. 

horsemouth is much more likely to go 'let's try it and see' rather than 'is everyone ok with that?'.(actually no, he's more likely to say 'I've tried it already and...' ) 

his time in a band many years ago cured him of any desire to engage in communal endeavour (and yet forced him to do so). this is why horsemouth loved music technology when it happened (MIDI and sequencers and samplers and drum machines) and also why he has subsequently moved in the direction of singer-songwriter-dom and folk guitar. 

horsemouth's life is a mess of frustrations. his general strategy is to try to appear to have stayed calm, to try and move things forward. to not over-attach to things happening (and to try not to plan too far ahead). 

(this is new improved horsemouth, but of course this takes effort and so is very tiring.)

the truth of it is that horsemouth has spent many long years trying to be agreeable rather than being honest with people and thus getting his real needs met (or not as the case may be).  honesty may always be the best policy but, it is important to remember, it is not always guaranteed to work. 

---------------------------------------------------

such were horsemouth's musings last night. how is he this morning? (wait let him go and get the second cup of coffee).

it's a beautiful day out (so he will probably go for a walk up onto the common. today he will stick to the dry and less muddy routes). it doesn't look like the recycling has been retrieved yet (when that has happened he will go and get the bin). yesterday he read a lot of down and out in paris and london by george orwell (he had forgotten or ignored the anti-semitism) page 100 so far and a little of versuch no1: notes and projects (ed. gil leung) in particular some responses to sol lewitt's sentences on conceptual art (he will discuss these another time).

he also got in a walk to the crossroads and then back round the edge of the base to the abbey. (this was very beautiful also).

this evening (possibly) some more bell ringing.