yesterday's rain (a change in the weather)

horsemouth's mum is not very well (this is a bit of a worry).

normally she is legendarily indomitable (today less so). 

a robin came to the window and looked in (or maybe it was looking for spiders round the window frame). 

yesterday rain

horsemouth would tell you if this were the case. (it did rain but not for long and not very heavily but then it rained heavily for a decently long time).

he'd put various buckets and water receptacles out to try and catch as much of it as possible.

it would take is several days/ weeks of actual proper rain to get the soil back to where it was (muddy but fertile).  

horsemouth will now return to a topic that is pleasurable to him energy bills, wholesale gas prices and insulation. andy burnham has let people off the VAT on their energy bills but then wholesale gas prices have risen so that will wipe out any savings people would have made. this will be the model for many of the changes he will attempt to make while in office.  small scale change swamped by wider economic forces. 

ok no bells for horsemouth last night - it's at the not-so-walkable church and his usual lift there was not going (which he should have anticipated really). 

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

ok horsemouth has done the chickens and he has done the milk. he's wearing trousers and a shirt on top of his t-shirt. the windows are closed. feels like a change in the weather. 

still it looks like it will be a beautiful day. 

meanwhile thrift-a-life (aka. bookpilled) has re-activated his clothing re-sale line. horsemouth very much enjoys watching this. it's just great watching him do what he does and how he thinks about it.

(not that horsemouth cares about clothes). 

horsemouth has , however, chopped out his mustache and beard. it makes him look uglier but younger. 

horsemouth and his notebook of particulars

horsemouth is awake and he has his coffee. matter of fact now he's on to round two of the coffee. 

he has published a photo of himself out drinking in forest hill (following the great trek to the horniman museum from st. pauls). it has garnered some 'likes' as they say.

this is the well deserved first pint (thereafter they rapidly become distinctly less virtuous). 

the photo is on film and was taken by howard. 

last night some spots of rain. horsemouth has been out to check the water butts to see if there was appreciable harvesting (but he thinks not). 

an email from the commons water people - levels in the tanks are still low (the lowest they've seen). horsemouth should pay more attention to reducing usage. 

when his dad was complaining about water shortages (way back) horsemouth suggested getting a cistern of some sort. when it rains a lot of water comes off the common - it is a shame it can't be kept until it is needed. 

yesterday the eggs to the crossroads and the TESCO food delivery taken in and put away. the usual stuff with the garden, the greenhouses and the chickens. right now (yesterday afternoon as will be) it looks like it might rain. 

here we see horsemouth again (again photographed by howard) 

this time on their walk from walthamstow wood street to st. pauls. here they pause at the powerscroft road book box for horsemouth to assess how it is doing without him. (not that well it would seem). 

in bruno's dream by iris murdoch one of the characters keeps a very detailled notebook of particulars trying to cut out the distressing influences of 'real life' by focusing on aestheticised  minutiae, 

meanwhile murdoch makes a disturbing and chaotic novel out of the 'real life' going on around him. now this book horsemouth bought (he didn't find it in a book-box). 

horsemouth wants to get more books (because he misses the thrill of the chase not because he wants to read more books). he's not sure if he will get away to do it today though. 

'all that is air crystallises into solid'

horsemouth noted a new possible overground station on the top end of the old surrey canal that himself and howard walked during their last visit. 

this is not in the bit that himself and howard walked but further up into millwall FC country. 

he was interested to read about the croydon canal. he thought south london was basically a canal free zone (but it turns out not to have been the case). 

horsemouth and his enthusiasm for infrastructure development projects 

please forgive horsemouth for his enthusiasm for infrastructure development projects (a railway station here, a tram line there). he suffers from the romance of development. it's not that he doesn't recognise that there are costs and losers with development it is just that he likes capitalism in its productive/ creative aspect, it gives him hope that production and creation and improvement are possible and could even be made to happen after capitalism.

of course if you improve transport infrastructure you increase movement, you increase footfall and trade (probably), you increase property values and drive a whole new incident of gentrification and clearances. the cheap and cheerful interstices where culture can thrive are cleansed and replaced by sterilised pseudo-public spaces.

(now that he puts it like that it sounds less appealing)

the culture, the edge, moves in search of cheaper rents. but then again horsemouth will come and visit. 

it's not that the promises of development have to be fulfilled - it is just that the development has to happen to maintain the illusion of a productive creative capitalism, to hide its actual dependency on the clearances of people/ robbery of space that this involves. 

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

horsemouth is waiting for the rain. he thinks that when it rains his generalised spiritual malaise will clear. 

horsemouth cooked 

the day before yesterday horsemouth cooked (such was the depth of his spiritual malaise). it was a chilli (without being a chilli) and a vegetable curry (without being a curry). he fried tomatoes and onions from the garden and then added the potato, runner bean leftovers and red kidney beans. he added some basil also. then he cooked some rice to go with it. he was pleased with it. it met with approval. 

yesterday horsemouth cooked again something similar again but with pasta (to considerably less acclaim). his mum seemed to be running a fever and was off her food. eventually horsemouth found working batteries to get the thermometer working which pronounced it a mild fever. having cursed (and f'd and blinded) through cooking the meal, horsemouth carried on cursing and f'ing and blinding through the health emergency. (great)

at one point (when he thought it was just dinner he was dealing with) he had a small tin of beer. 

today (as will be) the tesco food order arrives. but probably the day will be tied up with other things. 

three sailors

yesterday 

back from the village so about 2 miles there and back (all told). but up hill and down dale (and vice versa). 

this follows on from the day before's 2 miles there and back up the hill (and then down again). 

the weather is cooler but it's still sticky. the clouds look like rain but the weather forecast says no. possible rain in the night (looks like actual rain thursday, friday).

pray for rain

it would be good to get some actual rain. horsemouth might be able to get a second crop of various things in the garden. 

anyway it is cooler and cloudier.

from here on in written in the morning

horsemouth has written a smidgen more of the far future village band. there is a matrix emerging of things mentioned that are probably significant and will lead somewhere. (where that somewhere is remains the problem). at some point the story should shift from backstory to action (even if that action is ultimately frustrated by the world it is set in). he should hurry up and re-record the further chapters he has written for the next album (the far future village band IV) in smaller file sizes that seem to be agreeable to being posted up. 

likewise he should start working on his whistling tunes.

probably if he stitches together tri martolod (3 sailors - breton folksong) and le chaland qui passe (the canal boat goes by - french chanson) that will sound decent (plus it gets him out of having to sing in his bad french or in cod-breton). 

horsemouth has had his coffee. he is unsure what he wants to do with the day. 

no one wants to listen to your music (unless it's good)

the morning (yesterday)

his mum - a phonecall.

horsemouth - a phonecall.

at roughly the same time. 

later horsemouth wandered the eggs up the hill to martin (one small bottle of beer each).

later still - picking, peeling and chopping up apples. 

later still - great! he's found something to be anxious about. 

he watched a little of andy edwards's no one wants to listen to your music 

(ok ok he didn't watch all of it - but he has watched the end and then the beginning). 

that no one wants to listen to your music

this is true. it is remarkably difficult to get people to listen to new music these days. what is horsemouth doing now? is he listening to music he owns on CD but has not listenened to yet? no he's listening to some marion brown (an artist he knows) on youtube (admittedly he doesn't know the track). he listened to a welsh track because a friend recommended it on facebook. then he watched a little of the band live (which was good enough but didn't get him where he lived). 

ah now it has swapped back to sweet earth flying (part 5) which horsemouth knows already. for now horsemouth can't remember if it's muhal richard abrams or paul bley who actually plays it. 

the problem (of course) is that everyone now can have a decent home studio set-up for very little outlay, record their music and then 'release it' on bandcamp. and then... nothing. similarly you can get gigs and play gigs (but so what). 

of course the problem with andy is that he talks some sense (and then he talks some nonsense). 

today's gig is pharoah sanders at the festival musique ouverte de chateauvallon  on this day in 1977. this was round about the time of harvest time but it's not the harvest time band playing these tunes. anyway that is horsemouth's listening for today (should he decide to accept it). 

today a journey into the village to buy loaves of bread. horsemouth was planning a raid on the town to visit the big non-central charity shops and raid them for books (but now he guesses not). 

last night he forgot to lock up the chickens (bad horsemouth) but they seem all to be there (the fox didn't murder them) so all is good. 

ou sont les canicules d'antin

hail count binface

count binface has gone down to intergalactic defeat (but well done for trying). farage has conducted his spoiler manoeuvre against a possible recall petition but in doing so he has revealed that there are enough people who dislike him in clacton for a recall petition to be successful.

yet if there were to be a recall petition and yet another by-election there, he would probably still win it. 

the problem is that farage (and thus reform) have to be defeated electorally but the people of clacton don't seem disposed to do the job. it may be enough, other parties calculate, merely to destroy farage's  appetite for leadership. 

reform without farage is a busted flush

nonetheless with farage reform may end up holding the balance of power in the next parliament. in any event a likely outcomes are either a 'left' (lib-lab) pact but a 'right' pact (reform, the tories etc.). 

we may end up with a thatcher re-ron (seeing as, beneath the anti-immigration rhetoric, this is actually farage and badenoch's position) or a lib-lab pact. 

ou sont les canicules d'antin

the heatwaves of the summer have been an interesting one. will they move the dial on climate change and net zero? will this become the issue that can be put front and forward to the electorate. 

ok so when's the rain? not this week but next week (again).

horsemouth went for a walk around the common. counter-clockwise this time. 

as he returned he found a brown bottle (looks like a beer bottle to him 85 and symbol he cannot decipher). 

august calendar features (belated)

triple negative the under sea world of odile redon.

instead of fires on the common what if it were martian war machines on the common? 

the morning

well it's not warm. horsemouth is wearing two layers. he is (of course) holding out for rain so that he can get gardening again. this morning a zoom call and then a wander up the hill. 

horsemouth in the parallel universe of public transport and social mobility (the lives he is not leading)

so what would horsemouth be doing in the parallel universe of public transport and social mobility?

well he would be heading up to london (while his brother headed up to the wilds of herefordshire) for the weekend. 

as it currently stands he would travel up by train (probably the slow and cheap train via birmingham) on the saturday morning and return on the sunday evening. if he were to leave early enough he could get into hereford and get a £40 taxi out to the wilds because there are no buses in the evenings and certainly not on a sunday. alternatively he could get a later train to birmingham and then sleep 4 hours in the station before getting the early train to hereford on monday morning and then the bus out (unless it's a bank holiday monday). 

improvements are being made (he can't say they aren't)

a number of things are due to happen soon that will improve things for horsemouth.

notably there will be later buses than 6.20pm out of hereford (two buses 8.20 and 10.20pm). this will mean horsemouth can arrive back later into hereford and still get a bus out and there will be buses on a sunday (but only until 3pm or so). 

these extra buses will mean access to hereford of an evening for the mule (for the first time ever since his parents moved here in 1980) and on a sunday. 

he didn't mean to witter on about the buses. really it's more about the pull of the lives he is not leading by being out here. problems with transport were very much why he wanted to go to a city and very much a part of why he wanted to get away to college way back in the 80ies. it is not that horsemouth is adventurous (he is not) but he does get bored easily. 

yesterday a cooler day and a zoom beer with howard. horsemouth booked up a tesco delivery for his mum for the wednesday.  

today (in theory) a cooler day again. eggs up the hill and such like.  

horsemouth is enjoying the colette (earthly paradise) though to be honest he still has the iris murdoch and the pierre clastres still on the go. 

a little blue dot is hanging around the page offering him writing assistance I(there it is now). horsemouth declines. 

returning to seasonal norms

‘if you would know her, think of a garden in brittany, by the sea… 

the earthly paradise is here: it is not lost for her, others merely fail to see it…’

- bertrand de jouvenal on colette, in time and tide, published14th august 1954.

so horsemouth walked into the village to post off his far future village band promo pamphlets (dew but it was hot). one to ireland, one to the states, five or so to various destinations in the uk. 

hopefully everything will get to where it is going. 

he's constructing a mailing list. he probably needs the equivalent of compliments slips (or he'll have to hand write a lot of  cover letters which may not be a bad thing).

he walked in using the maximum shade route round the edge of the common. (but necessarily was in the sun some of the time). 

yesterday should be the last really hot day. from here on in it should start returning to seasonal norms (possibly with some rain). perhaps life can begin again. we shall see. 

all of this reminds him he should recharge his mobile (and stick some credit on it).

today

another beautiful morning out here. a mere 28C today (allegedly). perhaps even some rain today.

so farage has survived. binface has done respectably. about 30k votes total (so not a massive turn out) of which 20k went to the five-million dollar man and 9k to binface. 

partial solar eclipse (30th june 1921)

an entirely written in the morning blogpost

except for these next two short paragraphs;

some slight chance of rain on friday. a decent chance of rain on monday and for that week. 

alfred watkins (in addition to discovering ley-lines) is also the originator of the watkins factor in the development of film (according eric de mare's photography p.230). apparently the idea for ley-lines occured to him in bredwardine on the 30th june 1921. 

well it's another beautiful morning (horsemouth writes in the morning). 

yesterday eggs to the crossroads, bins down the drive, a quick trip to the village to pick up bread and sugar. 

today probably another trip into the village to post some letters and buy the hereford times. 

yesterday the partial solar eclipse happening just around teatime. some 90 odd percent coverage but that still meant the sun was too bright to look at (and, of course, horsemouth had not prepared for it). it got darker. it got slightly colder. animal behaviour got more significant. 

horsemouth walked down to the abbey as a good spot to observe it from. 

horsemouth carried on with his researches into jean-pierre melville (and in particular le cercle rouge). 

there was a R4 documentary on montaigne (horsemouth wished he liked reading him more). 

there was a report on the economic benefits of railway stations (particularly the ones in wales). 

in the garden the beetroot are almost done (something has been having a nibble). the broad beans are done. horsemouth should get out and crop more runner beans and tomatoes. 

this is where the rain comes in. horsemouth could then grow second crops of various things (or at least try to). at the moment he's trying to water to aid the survival of whatever it looks like it is alive (there being a water shortage on the common due to the drought etc.). 

and all of a sudden. out of the blue. everything changes. back again.

an entirely written in the morning blogpost

he had an entire other blogpost (on how unlikely it is that civilisation will still be around to collect on student loan repayments now that their terms have been extended) all lined up and ready to go. 

now horsemouth had been planning on going up to the wen but his brother swapped the dates on him and horsemouth went up early but he didn't get to see everyone he wanted to see. he was planning on going up again on the previously agreed date but he couldn't get cover so he'd resigned himself to having to disappoint his friends.

suddenly last night a phonecall from his brother (well a message on facebook messenger - but you know what he means). his brother could swap with him for the weekend. 

this still left horsemouth with the problem of squaring it with his mum (who dislikes change at short notice) and arranging somewhere to stay etc. and then getting back in a timely fashion. 

on balance (and he may be wrong) horsemouth thinks it is better to go up at a later date for slightly longer. the new dates seem to suit (but frankly the old dates would have suited as well). 

as usual horsemouth is guilty of overthinking it/ reacting poorly to sudden change. 

what will horsemouth do today?

he will buy envelopes and stick things in the post (far future village band things). 

'... as soon as the first sounds began...'

yesterday was georgia faun day (in particular the afternoon). 

it was the anniversary of marion brown recording the first album in his georgia trilogy in 1970. (this is the great thing about jazz albums, they were recorded on particular days)

'... as soon as the first sounds began and we knew we were recording, everyone was in it and totally listening to one another—listening to the sounds that the others were making and always putting something in that complimented the other sound or contrasted the other sound one way or the other...'

- chick corea, afternoon of a georgia faun wikipedia entry. 

this is the album in the trilogy that horsemouth does not own. he has the others (sweet earth flying and geechee recollections) on a double CD. 

horsemouth himself collected snail mail addresses of his friends so that he could post out copies of the far future village band stories (in this case chapters one, two, and three). he chatted with iona online. 

he will get on with all of this today as part of his visit to the village. 

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

'it is necessary, to recreate a world that conforms to one's interior image, and to do it systematically' - jean-pierre melville.

horsemouth is up. it is a greyish morning of low cloud. he has put the milk in the garage and fed the chickens. he has a slight headache. he has picked the last of the broad beans for this crop. the runner beans are a roaring success (everything else less so). 

the far future village band III is here!

it's here

the far future village band III is here 

(well at least in digital form). 

horsemouth has been listening to it and pronounces himself most pleased. as you know it features some of horsemouth's singing (and a small amount of his playing the harmonium). the rest of the music is provided by rob lawson (as usual it is great). 

it also features horsemouth narrating the first four chapters of his far future village band novel. he hopes to continue this in the next installment. everything seems to fit nicely together to horsemouth and soon there will be a booklet to go with it containing the four short stories/ character sketches. 

yesterday horsemouth went out and did some watering. 

it looks like one of the shrubs in the coppice (so called, not actually a coppice) has died with the heat. let us see if it will come back. 

the trees are doing fine. and the bushes. anything rooted in the soil with a decent root system (except for the shrub above). at least another two weeks of the heatwave to go (possibly more). 

horsemouth has hoisted a flag and his brother has seen it 

horsemouth was slightly spoiled by his trip to london. his mum claims there is another visit in september (of the long weekend variety) this would be really useful to horsemouth but it's not immediately, it's a way off. 

and sadly it comes just before another time when horsemouth could do with being up in the wen to welcome another visitor. 

there was a more immediate one (that his mum now claims is off) but it didn't work for horsemouth because it didn't include the weekend. 

ultimately horsemouth has to solve the problem of making short visits to the city when he needs to rather than that of making longer visits to the city when it suits his wider family. 

smoke is drifting up the valley

smoke is drifting up the valley. horsemouth went to see where it is coming from (from the military base he thought, but actually it seemed to follow the motorway). possibly from the wild fires in ebbw vale. 

a leaflet has arrived from the commons committee (rather than the water lot) - they will be cutting down more bracken and clearing more dead wood from the common in an effort to reduce the amount of combustible material lying around up there. 

church bells and black cat blues

'almost everything I write is about me. even funny fiction stories.' 

-  joe brainard, journal entry, 2nd june 1969 (quoted in the introduction by paul auster). 

wikipedia entry here (if like horsemouth you had never heard of him before, or if, also like horsemouth, you had heard of him once but had forgotten who he was since). 

horsemouth is feeling grumpy and at a loose end. 

howard is back from his travels round alfriston (but is off on another jaunt today). 

yesterday earlier on in the day church bells (a wedding). he saw the black cat sneaking round the house and then making its way down the drive. later on church bells again (as the newly married couple left). horsemouth picked some damsons and then there was a hunt through the garage for the storage jars and lids and such like. 

and from here on in an (entirely) written in the morning blogpost

looks like one of the chickens is on its way out. horsemouth has put it in the far shed with water and food to see if it will make a recovery. there were 9 recently added hens and 5 older hens, one of the older hens (horsemouth thinks) has since died. 

bruno's dream progresses well. bruno is dying and he is surrounded by a regular old cast of ne'er do wells. currently two of them are off doing the foxtrot. a couple talk in chunks of wittgenstein. at some point the thames will break its banks and we will have a dramatic denouement (doubtless). 

horsemouth wants to get stuff done but it is proving difficult. 

monday morning his mum is off to the doctors. 

'it was hard to say goodbye to my kind friends...'

kilvert (in 1872) is saying goodbye.

things horsemouth had not remembered

that chronicle of the guayaki indians starts with a birth. as the baby is born we are told about the anthropologist, guayaki cosmology and birthing practices all at the same time. 

he has repo-ed it from howard. 

he has iris murdoch's bruno's dream to be getting on with as well. 

things horsemouth had not known

coromandel wood is a variegated ebony wood (often from india, sri lanka, or indonesia). thus when kilvert described having a desk of coromandel wood bound round with brass horsemouth made nothing of it, but eventually he came to look at the word and wonder what it meant... and thence to wikipedia (god bless wikipedia). 

yesterday was bandcamp friday 

howard's solo album from the wilds of maine seems to have resurfaced. horsemouth recommends you grab this one while you can. it really is very good. 

good morning good morning

it's another beautiful morning out in the wilds. in a bit horsemouth will go out and do the watering. he will probably pick some damsons today (such as are ripe). 

we really are very fortunate to have a bus at all

a whole day of back and fore with the doctors

horsemouth emailed in a photo of his mum's injury and they reckoned it was a side-effect of the medication to bruise so badly so horsemouth and his mum didn't have to try getting to ewyas harold on the non-existent 1520 bus or back from ewyas harold on the non-existent post 1720 return service. 

nor did horsemouth and his mum have to phone around and beg a lift from friends (which is what it would need really).  

so let's get this straight 

last bus into ewyas harold (with a bus back later)  is;

1306 mondays, thursdays, fridays (the good days), 

1120 on a saturday, 

and 0920 on a tuesdays and wednesdays (the bad days).

sundays (and beware bank holidays) nothing nothing nothing. 

without the timetable in front of you you really don't stand much of a chance of working these things out. 

and yet (as the neighbour at the crossroads said) we really are very fortunate to have a bus at all. 

when the night buses come

they may be about to run night buses (i.e. buses after 1830 of an evening) at  2030 and 2230 from hereford to pontrilas but that doesn't mean there will be a connecting service running up to abbeydore (looks like horsemouth will be walking back across the common). 

you see for horsemouth it is not a problem - he can walk. for his mother (in the absence of a local cab and the community taxi needing to be booked in advance) as soon as there is any kind of emergency transport is a problem. 

and there's no sign yet of the hereford buses dropping from £3 each way to £2 each way - they are welsh buses and thus not subject to andy burnham's fiat. if horsemouth were in wales he would already have free bus travel but as it stands he will have to wait until 67. 

earlier on in the day 

horsemouth walked into ewyas harold and picked up his mum's prescription, checked out the volunteer run library (thursdays), and shopped for one or two items. the river is very low but someone is getting some giant LEGO style flood defences installed. 

and then he walked back. 

he probably needs to pick up some more bread and some more beer at some point. 

he's also been digging around and weeding in the garden. this means he has accidentally harvested some onions and some beetroot. the onions are tiny (shallot sized) - he blames limitations on the watering. they pretty much ate those last night (and very nice they were too). 

he thinks some secondary planting for an autumn harvest might be possible (or even necessary). 

it's a cold, coolish, autumnal morning but really we are still in the middle of a drought and a heat wave. even out here temperatures up to 30 and bottoming out at 24, some rain (but not nearly enough). 

today he will re-record his reading of chapter 5 for the far future village band project. it is bandcamp friday. 

and where are we with ourselves?

where are we with kilvert in the year 1872?

yesterday he returned to clyro. rain poured all day. he missed the midday train from hereford (as usual).

'I dined at the vicarage and received a present of a magnificent writing desk, which I am writing upon now, the most beautiful and perfect I ever saw, of coromandel wood bound with brass, fitted with polished mahogany and containing two most secret drawers.' 

today the venables, his employers, move to llysdinam. his replacement is booked in. all that remains for him to do is to work out his contract and then leave. september 2nd 1972 he will himself move away. 

and where are we with ourselves? 

well horsemouth lost his temper in the morning and he just lost it again in the evening. rather a few more things are dead in the garden or the greenhouse than he realised. the odd plant unnecessarily butchered for no good reason that he can see. 

but that's not the real reason. his essential dilemma is unresolved. the thing he needs to fix is not his to fix (within the conditions as currently set). 

ah. the conditions as currently set. (horsemouth fantasises wiggle room). 

in between there were some constructive and positive moments. when horsemouth was supportive and helpful. hopefully he can do more of those today.

today

well he's up. he's fed the chickens. the bin men have been (hopefully he put out the right bin). in a bit a journey down the drive to recover the said bin. perhaps later a journey into the village to pick up the prescription and the hereford times. 

horsemouth is back in the wild ( evidence of rain)

horsemouth is back in the wild

he got home at about half five having left london at about 11 o'clock.

the house itself he had left even earlier. he had a plan to raid the bookmarx bargain table (highly recommended) but they were shut when he got there and weren't opening until 10.30. he returned to outside dillons (as was) and picked up a copy of colette's letters  (earthly paradise in the penguin lives and letters series) for a fiver (not enough of a bargain to have interested him formerly but it will do).   

actually it looks familiar he may have bought it before. 

from 11 til roughly 1.20 he was on the first train. when he got to hereford he had an hour wait - he tried a book raid and then just gave up and read. strangely what he read on the train and in hereford and on the first bus was  bruno's dream by iris murdoch. (old man dying - various ne'er do wells round him). 

his first concern when he got back was to check the garden.

shock horror it is still there. there were plenty of runner beans in need of picking (there are even some broad beans). as horsemouth came into ledbury (or was it colwall) there was a short burst of rain (and similarly once he got home), not enough to do any real good (but nice to see). 

the morning

horsemouth awakes to evidence of rain. (clouds even). distinctly cooler. he can see the rabbits moving in the woods, there's even one in the hen enclosure (cheeky fecker). horsemouth wonders how it is getting in. 

this weather makes the previous weather temporarily  inconceivable. seems it's going to cool down to 20C or so and then heat back up to 28C. 

his brother has effected a temporary repair to the gate and the fence post (but it's wood in soil it has rotted out at the base). 

last night two conversations. 

the first on m. john harrison's chances of winning the booker (or even making the shortlist). who knows SF may have served its time in low culture prison and now be eligible for parole into the world of literary respectability. (there are other distributions that can be made of this material horsemouth knows).  

this led on to a discussion of how bad the title's of his books were and how bad the covers were (horsemouth has to concede both points). 

the second was on the perilous era we find ourselves in. the foolishness of modern wars and civil wars (as evidenced by the battle of the crater). 

horsemouth supposes there was a third conversation - with the bus driver on the way back about guitars. horsemouth will be researching the gretsch electromatic jet.

horsemouth out on a wander

so here we have horsemouth out on a wander (photo by howard).

it was a hot day. himself and howard were scuttling from one bit of shade to the next.

you may wonder where his dreadlocks are. 

they are up under his hat. (it is rare for horsemouth to wear a hat).

the wander went from walthamstow wood street to the steps of st. pauls (the start of their last major wander). it went via walthamstow marshes, hackney, islington, smithfield, and st. barts. 

they paused at the lea valley ice rink for coffee. 

and then later they paused  for food in angel thinking that there might be a wetherspoons (but no such luck- the one they were thinking of was in highbury). so they ate more expensively. howard had a vegan burger and fries and horsemouth had halloumi on toast. 

after completing the wander and having sat on the steps of st. pauls in stupefaction at the heat they made their way across the bridge to the tate modern and hid in there for about an hour. there they saw the exhibit by nora chipaumire (which they both liked and enjoyed and would recommend). 

they then went for two pints in a local pub (fortunately with air conditioning) but horsemouth was deterred by the heat from proposing any more (this was probably wise). 

thence hellishly hot underground journeys back. 

now horsemouth is back at his brother's house and cooling off by an open window. 

the morning. horsemouth faces the journey back to the wild. but not for a while. on his cheapest of tickets he can't get the earlier trains and there are breaks in the journey (at birmingham, at hereford). the stop at hereford may permit more book buying. he may travel into the town earlier. 

and sparrows raided the sunflowers

horsemouth is back from max's 60ieth (and scarecrow booklaunch) in spitalfields city farm. 

he travelled down early to bethnal green railway station and then scouted the area for a while. mostly in search of shade. he got a text from minty and they arranged to meet at whitechapel library and then go for coffee at rinkoffs. 

this left horsemouth with a bit of a hurried walk back for the start of max's thing. he got a text from howard to say that he was going.  he bumped into micalef on his way.

and then they were there and gradually everyone was there. micalef performed some scarecrow themed poetry and glyn and a friend provided the music (english country dance stuff with perhaps a breton tune thrown in there).  and sparrows raided the sunflowers.

howard headed off back to the whitechapel gallery.

in the end they all packed up and headed off to their usual pub. on the way horsemouth helped max drop his as yet unsold books off at his beautiful flat. (worthy of john soanes).

at the pub a discussion of tv detective series - and the terms copwashing and copaganda. the squatting days etc. etc. 

eventually himself darshavini and john cunningman headed off in the same general direction towards their respective buses and tube stations (leaving max and micalef etc. still at it).  

today a walk (much of it familiar to horsemouth).

and then on the morrow back to the wilds. 

high barnet wander (the wonderful north circular)

 so after a morning off horsemouth was away to the cruel wars of high barnetery (obscure folk music joke). 

he was picked up in a van from the station carpark by paul clark and transported at marvellous speed via the wonderful north circular. 

later in or near  high barnet itself there were road closures due to burst water mains (apparently there are  loads of these at the minute). there were parking restrictions. all conspired to make a complicated route.

back to the house (in its state of process). paul cooked tortilla and they drank a little beer - this was mostly to deal with horsemouth's hangxiety. they listened to musicians of bremen volume four (which horsemouth had succeeded in bring a working copy of this time). 

toni appeared. a friend arrived. there was a meal outside on the sun loungers. horsemouth proclaimed his contributions to the far future village band project and asked about paul and toni's urban renewal projects.  

and then off for ice creams. during the visit to the ice cream farm there was a ethnomethodological breaching experiment involving a violation of queueing etiquette. (horsemouth only sort of participated and then hid until it had been successful). they then ate icecreams. 

back to the house and walking the dog round the neighbourhood. 

soon after horsemouth said goodbye and thanked his hosts before heading off down the hill towards the tube station. he passed alms houses and busy pubs. thereafter archway, north holloway, walthamstow queen street, walthamstow central, and so on. the youth were out and particularly fine. everybody floated in liquid darkness.

no photos this time. 

today

today we shall see.