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An office building near Old Street, mercifully just outside the congestion charge zone. Siwan and I are getting stuck into sorting out all the clothes that have been in my lockup. It’s a mixed bag. Plenty of stuff from Parabolic, with whom I did the Bletchley Park show a few years ago. Parabolic are busy with Bridge Commander now, and they lost their crypt so this stuff has been costing them money to keep. I’ve got it now and the first thing to do is air it out so I’ve hung it. Lots of camouflage. Chris was in the army. It seems I’ve got his stuff now, some of it lovingly nametaped with his surname.

It’s gonna take a few days to even get all the stuff into the office and out of bags, and this is always just gonna be a temporary room. This is a room for sorting, we might have to pack up and run at any time. Worst case I’ll rent a Luton and one shot the removal. Right now, it’s coming piecemeal with Bergmanloads. It’s already clear we will have enough stuff to happily kit ourselves for our forthcoming projects – The Swan and Halloween walk among them. But we haven’t even cracked the back of it yet, there are so many loads still to come. Costume bits, bloody bits, a couple of corsets, accessories, hats, ties… So many shoes. We are keeping it all until we have sorted through, and then we might start jettisoning the crap. Need to know where the level is first.

It’s something to do while I wait for whatever is next. I’m no good at doing nothing, never have been.

Still I’ve been picking through some of the little things that bother me recently. I had a realisation. Things like the boats, and  getting outplayed on one of my old event contacts by an ambitious snake – I have carried bruises for a while. But today suddenly the perspective shot in as I was driving. I hate the game playing and point scoring that comes in with office work. I never really understand it when I get caught up in it outside of that context. There’s a lot of bottled poison in workplaces, and I dip in and out of many workplaces, usually as a wild card. I’ve tried to flush lots of the negativity. Met up with the snake. I’m getting perspective. Because it’s only the dayjobs where there’s this weirdness. I think to the Othello Company, it was bliss. My recent film sets – happy sets. When I’m doing what I’m here to do it’s all lovely, it’s only when there’s a money job and there are emotionally stunted people that my instinctive visibility means I can cop it for no reason and I start to pick up negativity that, even now, pops up in my memory like it is new and has to be deprocessed again.

I wish I didn’t need them, the money jobs, but … I wrote the other day about how they make it possible, if you aren’t independently wealthy to a high level. They help with perspective too, you can’t be an actor effectively if you only hang out with other actors, who are you gonna scavenge? I have just noticed that it’s only in these money jobs that I’ve experienced the pain, so I’m gonna pull my pain out of them. I’ll keep working as hard as ever, it’s who I am. But I’m gonna try and take a leaf out of Darren’s book and not let myself get so tangled up and involved emotionally. What will be will be, what people think of me is their business outside of within my profession where it is fucking important. “You’ll run yourself into the ground if you keep giving that much of a fuck,” said Darren. “I’ve done this for over twenty years,” I told him. And I still will, in my way, but I’m not gonna let myself get hurt when people see it hate it and take a swipe. Like N who used to try and make me fall over on the boats, and eventually poisoned the well merely cos he didn’t like me, like he did with Dave before me. But … you see how I’m carrying it still? Old poison. Time to let it go.

BLEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRRGH

So I’m sorting lots of disguises out after having worn many disguises over many years and I think I’m done with putting myself on the line even if I’ll still work like a train. I’ll have another workshop soon teaching people Shakespeare, and I think I’ll be better at it if I don’t give so much of a fuck. I’ll still work hard but if they don’t wanna learn it’s not on me.

It’s good to be back home. It’s strange, but it’s good. This town is busy, it’s vibrant, it’s full of shit. I drove in with the morning.

Cats cats everywhere and after an initial shyness they were mobbing me for strokes. What am I right now but an accessory for the felines? I have been trying to establish what I am by catching up with admin. It seems I now lead workshops for children about Shakespeare, but the stuff I used to do about lisping Tarquin and Cameron lost in the woods – that has gone the way of all flesh. Honestly that’s a mercy. I had to play one of the worst videos ever known to a bunch of year 10 and then afterwards had to teach a workshop clearly designed by a committee of fifty year old men who work in offices. They all went to private school and so they think nothing of asking for vast amounts of colour printouts, and all sorts of unnecessary materials, and it was all done without an eye to what real schools are like. It would have played very well at Harrow, but they were after Ark Walworth. So yeah, one thing goes bye bye – (I think they lost the client, no fault of mine) – and something new comes in and now I get to corral American students who don’t give much of a fuck about Shakespeare. “So, who knows a line of Shakespeare!” *Tumbleweed*.

It’s important – nay vital – to find ways to tick over between the jobs. Drop the dayjob ball too long and the career ball drops with it in this game. I’m still riding high, but I’m starting to think about the passage of time, and I need to have my basic needs met. And God help me I’m still as ambitious and hopeful as I was in my twenties. Gotta stay flexible and positive for those good opportunities when they come. I didn’t have babies when it was the age, I wanted to, but my momentum never allowed it, I never got close to a time where I felt I could take my focus off the ball. I’m sad about it, but the plus side is I can still be immediate and responsive, yah? What’s gained, what’s lost? I dunno. Gotta have something to be responsive TO. I’m sad about it sometimes.

This job is a hiding. All will be well. This… this has been an excellent year. Almost impossibly good. I can only keep the faith, keep space, keep working. And keep the dayjobs ticking over.

Urgh.

A week and a day until Easter believe it or not. The shops have been screaming about it for so long I’ll be glad to see the end of it, and maybe a month of barbeque crap before they start pushing Christmas.

I’m out of the woods. It was all I could do to pull myself away. I woke up, scrutinised the now tainted bird feeder. Less busy, but some larger birds came. Some crows and the woodpecker. The noisy jackdaw. I’m nervous now as if it was a peregrine, the tit was just a snack. Might have been a sparrowhawk though, cognitive bias is a thing and I’ve had falcons on the brain. Hell of a thing to have witnessed. I still love predators.

Semi feral cats are great. Rajah only wanted food once a day and never bothered me for it. Carlos is a bit more needy but warm at night. Both of them go outside for all their poo and wee, and they have such a range that there’s no issues about shit all over the place. I just got to bask in the spring sun and do absolutely fuckedytuesday for a whole week. I cooked a bit, but also fell a little bit in love with Lime Wharf Café, with better coffee than I can make in the woods and a reasonably priced and always absolutely brilliant breakfast if you get there in time. Some of my mornings I was too slow and I got presented with the lunch menu which is alright, but for just a 7 minute drive it was my treat every other day. Pretending I’m in civilisation, then back to the cats. Also my phone works there, it doesn’t work in the woods. So I would eat my breakfast mumbling into my raybans, looking like some sort of maniac, catching up with Lou or a friend.

Reasonably speaking I did go a bit feral in the woods. But Lou observed I had been getting a bit crowded out in London, as evidenced by the day I went to try and wind down at Chelsea Physic Garden, but it was full of tour groups so I went home and Maria was shouting about laundry so I went and sat in my car outside for about an hour and a half just because it was the most solitary place I could find and I was getting flooded. I do get flooded eventually, much as “I love the people,” as Lou puts it. I needed a break.

I’m with her now and another cat, this one fluffier and much higher maintenance. Tomorrow I’ll be back to crazy and lazy and London town. There’s always a cat these days, it’s the rules. Usually there are multiples, even if I’m not counting myself.

Yesterday I wrote about the peregrine falcons at St Alban’s Cathedral. About how the webcam showed someone gathering their courage to “innocently walk” across the well watched falcon nesting area “just coincidentally” putting their boot exactly over all three eggs. (That’s what they’ll argue)

Raptors have always had a hard time on this small island. Red Kites, which are carrion birds, were wiped out because farmers thought they were taking the lambs and started shooting them. They would certainly take lambs, but they aren’t going to kill them first. “Your lamb … was already dead.” They’ve been reintroduced, red kites. There’ll be idiots swearing about it I’m sure. The internet has made it clear that the vast majority of people are morons.

Peregrines, they feed off live prey, not carrion. Some predators are wired like that – even Hex the crap snake won’t take a mouse unless you heat it to body temperature and puppet it to convince him it’s alive.

I was upset that someone felt they needed to “accidentally” deliberately kill three unborn falcons. “Maybe he was a twitcher,” I quietly thought, knowing in an academic way that peregrines murder small birds, knowing how some people can’t get their head around nature red in tooth and claw.

I’ve been interfering. I put fat balls out, and seeds for the birds. I’ve been quietly worrying the cats might kill something but Carlos is slow and Rajah is groundbound. I stopped being concerned. “Look at all the nice easy food I have for you,” was my human intervention into the natural world. Satisfying my own obscure desire to be able to observe nature and feel like somehow I am contributing, here in the woods. “Look at all the pretty little birdies” I said to myself.

Problem is, when we attract lots of little tasty birdies, something might be watching. I could never have imagined I would learn this lesson in such a timely fashion.

10:30am. Lou and I in the garden. “Oh look there’s a pair of tits.” (Stop it. Cute birds. A couple, perhaps.)

10:35am. “One of them is brave enough to go to the feeder. The other one is coy. They’re plucking up the courage.” I say. My nice tits that I’ve encouraged to eat at the table cos me me human me doing.

Twenty minutes of sunny conversation in the garden forgetting about these creatures. Then suddenly I’m bolt upright, there are no birds visible, but there are loads of them shouting unfamiliar alarm calls. Too late, too late… Since this incident I haven’t seen a single bird on the feeder. It’s dark now.

What incident? Yeah it was that quick.

Out of the corner of my eye, previously unremarked, I catch the movement of a big bird. Lou has her back to the feeder, but sees me sit up in interest. I say “ooh”. I’m expecting a woodpecker as all my brain has really processed is bird movement towards feeder. It is greyish almost blue and how many of you have ever seen a predator strike close up? I saw a dragonfly take prey once right in front of me, and it was astonishing.

From my right to my left, the thing came in so fast I hadn’t fully computed it, and had I not seen it fly away slower into the trees with the tit in its claws, I could not have believed that I had just witnessed a fucking peregrine falcon taking a little bird off the lawn. It struck behind Lou’s head, but I caught most of it and it was SO CLEAN. I had caught it coming in and was curious enough to see it leave but it all happened so quickly.

“Wow, I’ve never seen that,” I say in awe and horror. Lou, with her back to the feeder, has been oblivious. I’m shocked though and she senses it. I describe what I saw. I got a good look at it as it left. She can hear the birds shouting weirdly. A life snuffed out like THAT.

I honestly think it was a peregrine. It was small though so it could be that I’ve got them on my mind and it was a sparrowhawk. Whatever it was, I saw a small grey raptor take a finch off the lawn so quickly it almost felt like it was impossible. Now the feeder is barren.

Predators are incredible, the speed with which they take something from busy life to dead dead dead. We all might end in an instant, but I’m glad we wiped out Smilodon even if sometimes I think it might be the solution to the superabundance of oblivious entitled eejits. It’s such a cruel end to witness. The circle of life but… …

Was it my fault for putting the feeder out? The falcon would have found prey anyway. It’s just worth remembering that if we put a feeder out for things that eat seeds, we put a feeder out for things that eat things that eat seeds.

If that’s why the guy walked on the eggs, he needs to examine his cause and effect. If he deliberately cut off three small lives because he saw something else cut off a life, how should a being that considers itself more powerful than him react? He didn’t even want to eat the eggs. At least the tit made a good meal. Maybe there’s some impossible to comprehend alien being that loves falcons plucking up the courage to step on the guy that stepped on the eggs.

I feel humbled and fortunate to have seen such a thing. I feel slightly to blame byb feeder intervention. I created a situation the birds hadn’t evolved survival strategies for yet. But it’s not like I threw an ant into a spiders web. It’s nature. insha’Allah. Raptors are beautiful but brutal. I eat meat. I am a member of the most destructive species that ever existed, and like with the eggs it often isn’t even for survival. Plus nature is cruel.

“So this is what you’ve been doing all day? Sitting here in the sunlight talking to the birds?” “… And one particular squirrel. They join in too. But largely yes it’s me and the birds – mostly that jackdaw.”

Lou came to the woods.

I drove to Birling Gap in the morning and met her off a bus. We went walking up the Seven Sisters. There’s more waiting to fall off, they’ve fenced the edges, at some point before real summer we are due that seasonal dump of rain where all the cracked chalk peels off into the sea and our great nation gets just a tiny little bit smaller by erosion.

It’s odd round there but beautiful. Chaplains in marked vehicles drive to try and find potential jumpers. Flowers are strewn on patches of grass from relatives of the ones that slipped past. I’ve known a couple took this way out – Beachy Head. Desperately sad. Suicide is such a cruelty. I’ve always considered it too uncertain jumping here, not that I’ve put that much thought to it mind you. If I were to feel like I was buried in shit with no way out, I wouldn’t want the risk of ending up paralysed as well. But my deep embedded science thinking is both my blessing and my curse. Max was a powerful brother to grow up with.

We looked at the lighthouse, met some horses. They’ve put white horses up there. Serene, kept from the cliffs by low electric fences, but happy to come stand near people. Maybe it’s a government scheme, mental health horses. They would blow my mind if I was staggering around here off my nut on hallucinogens. I’d get no further than them. Last line of defence for local kids who think they can fly.

We blew into their noses, chewed the fat a bit. Makes a change from birds, cats and that darn squirrel. “A horse is a horse of course of course and no-one can talk to a horse, of course…?” Not strictly true. You can talk to a horse just as efficiently as I can talk to that squirrel. It just hasn’t got a fucking clue what you’re on about.

My communication with the animals here is probably mostly about territory. I’ve been feeding them seeds and fat balls but it’s just made them think I’m after their seeds and fat balls. Bastards. I try and reassure them but all I can do is imitate them, which is probably rude but I do it anyway. And so the day goes by. It’s mostly convivial.

“You’ve gone feral.” She says. “There are bats in the garden at night.” I reply.

This is deep woods, for Sussex. The owner bought land with a footprint, an old gamekeeper’s cottage and a barn. He built on the footprint, he’s an architect. He made two amazing properties. The other one is usually empty, a bit deeper in, you can rent it on Airbnb. It’s like an old American A-frame.

Somehow the binmen get here. And there’s plumbing. But… it’s a comfort, reminds me of childhood, to know that there are so many bees, that woodpeckers are still at it. To see the variety of plant life, the primroses all up and blossoms blooming. The two heavy hearted things, I haven’t heard a cuckoo. They used to mean this time of year across the country. Where are they all? And I’ve seen all sorts of tits, but nary a sparrow and they were as common as pigeons when I was a kid. Both losses. Maybe just natural shifts, but some absolute bastard deliberately stepped on three peregrine falcon eggs at St Alban’s Cathedral a couple of days ago. I hope they throw the book at him after they’ve finished throwing it at the two idiots who finally go on trial on the 28th for hacking the Hadrian’s Wall sycamore. In this digital age of misinformation, more and more people are magnifying their little ignorances or grudges about things of nature. I’m sure we will see more of this sort of thing, often mistaken by the perpetrator as some kind of expression of personal power in a largely misunderstood world.

But I’m not gonna give them the energy of thought. Here in the dark and the quiet I can just enjoy being with Lou and know that things are pretty good right here right now no matter what’s going on out there.

I parked up near Warrior Square in St Leonard’s. Immediately on the street there were people playing shit awful music at mega volume through their car stereo, or shifting around in dodgy groups where you think you might have your phone snatched or someone is gonna spit at you. It’s still a bit lively and pissed off in St Leonard’s. I wandered down the seafront.

Two young women were feeding chips to seagulls on their second floor windowsill. Drunk men pissed on the beach with no care. The cold wind was blowing in off the sea. I put my hoodie up, fitted right in. Last time I was here Lou and I watched a small time drug deal go down in a car park. Didn’t even bother to do it in the car, just out in the open. There’s a crime museum where they have all sorts of artifacts. “This is Charlie Manson’s toilet brush,” type stuff. Standing outside it was a large group of Macdonald’s-bodied people in identical ghost hunter sweatshirts. You could have run a butter knife down any of their cheeks and spread the result on bread for a nutritional meal. They looked like they were about to go hunting ghosts in the crime museum, and they might well find all sorts of stuff in there if they don’t need to sit down almost immediately. It looks like it’s a load of damp catacombs where you can commune with Rose West’s pajama bottoms. Maybe too many stairs, but I’m sure they have some Red Bull.

I haven’t seen people for a few days, that’s the problem. My tolerance has gone down. It’s just been me and the cats and the birds and the trees. Now I’ve remembered there are millions of people out there who do stuff like think they are clever cos they’ve watched a thing on YouTube saying space doesn’t exist or whatever the latest guff is, I don’t even want to write that shit down.

I went to see my mate in her new flat. It’s a sanctuary, and I’m proud she’s made it for herself. It’s taken work.

We caught up, laughed about the struggle, and I packed myself back out and off pretty quickly. Cats don’t feed themselves, and being here means looking after the furry little blighters.

Now I’m in bed early again, gonna get my head down, it’s dark. It’ll be warmer tomorrow I think, which is a blessing. I’ve started to relax a little and dress lighter. Maybe a mistake since it is only April. But maybe there’ll be a summer this year.

So sleepy and it is barely half nine. But my rhythm is much more aligned with nature here. I’ve only been in the woods for a few days but there’s power here. And when it gets dark and quiet it means it.

The cats scratch and jump about at night, but outside of that slightly comforting distraction it is dead quiet here.

I went for fish and chips for dinner. Just down the road to the local chippy, two busy Poles, loads of people waiting. All wrapped up in paper and dripping with grease. Salt and vinegar all over the place and a shop next door where I bought a bottle of ketchup. I drove back chanting nam myo ho renge kyo, shoved the fish into my gullet and got online in time for my study meeting. We are learning facts in order to take Grade 1 in the study materials applied by the Soka Gakkai, a lay Buddhism that either clarifies the teachings of the Shakyamuni through the lens of Nichiren Daishonin, or oversimplifies everything by reducing it all to one sutra and then even further, to the opening line of that sutra, and then even further, to encouraging practitioners to chant the opening line of that sutra on repeat in Japaneseish Sanskrit expressed in kanji and then rendered phonetically.

It’s wilful and I love it. This is the mystic law. Screw the priesthood, let’s all try and achieve Buddhahood in this lifetime, let’s all be the bodhisattvas of the earth. It’s a mildly evangelical structure, as they seek what they call “kosen rufu”, which is Chinese kanji loosely adopted into Japanese as “spread about widely”. It’s probably more widely practiced outside of Japan as a result. I’ve got a scroll in my flat and I can be found in front of it often. I’m picking it back up again these days but it has always been important.

And I’ve been looking at suitcases full of clothes today as well as entertaining the cats. Seems I’ve got lots of army fatigues in here, and some seventies stuff. Siwan and I are gonna get together on Monday and sort this shit out along with all the other stuff and start to work out how to activate it so it doesn’t just live in bags until we die.

For tonight though it’s all back in the bags, I haven’t the means to photograph it well here, I’m gonna make that next week’s work. And I’m going to bed early again and it’s gonna be great. I was up with dawn today, the sun is down now, it’s bedtime. I’ve done enough.

Carlos is next door this time. I might actually get the bed to myself tonight…. Miracles.

Here I am, still in the woods surrounded by cats as is the rules. They are psychopomps, cats. It’s hard to deny it when you frequently dream lucidly. When my dream has been hijacked I’ve often been woken from it almost immediately with a paw in the mouth, or a “MWRAK” in the face. I love that I’ve met so many cats in the last few years. These guys are representing for the team.

Rajah is the hunter, closer to a wild cat so long as there’s a soft place to stay and guaranteed fish in the morning. Carlos is more vocal, more oriented to people. Wherever I am on the bed he is burrowed next to me all night as I sleep, sharing warmth and dreams.

I’ve taken this downtime to try and upskill myself. There’s a feeling I’ve got that if I can edit videos and make them proficiently enough they might start to help fund my crazy excursions. There are lots of walks I want to do, I like the things I like so my take on things would be through the prism of what I like. I’m sure it’ll eventually involve cars, but walking, nature and food, and my first video has a focus on food.

I went to a local restaurant, Upstairs at the Tillingham. It sustainably sources the menu and avoids waste – it’s like they were trying to do at Birch with all that fennell – and they have been making wine on site (strong wine). They have vineyards. Climate change is kinda working to their advantage, but it’ll be a while before they have good red. Brilliant service throughout and really really good food. I had too much to drink.

They priced food according to difficulty, and just the fact they made potato skins into a feature makes them heroes. I went there just with the intention of making a tester video and having a lovely meal. I hadn’t even checked the menu and prices beforehand. I spent a bit, but it was worth it. And I made a video. I then put the video out on an obscure YouTube channel that I’ve never used before. It’s connected to a load of gaming related stuff I never really followed through on since lockdown. I’m still very cagey about putting personal things online, despite this blog, believe it or not. I know what the comments section can turn into, and I tend to have opinions on things so care is needed.

This was about learning. How could I have made this easier for myself in the edit? Wipes, movements, opportunities to cut away and cut back, I’ll need to improve my techniques but this is early days. I’m happy enough with it as a proof of concept as it gives me things to work on. I’ve credited the hardware and software I’m using in the description, but in this instance the bulk of it is recorded through a pair of RayBan Meta Sunglasses that I impulsively bought a few months ago and have been using a lot as a hands free kit and as speakers. They are an incredible piece of tech, basically a go-pro with microphone on your face. They even have all sorts of Babel fish like live translation functionality but I won’t be able to switch that on unless I go to America. Even without that they’re good. I’ve always been an adopter. I was a huge fan of Douglas Adams, adapted Hitchhiker’s Guide for stage at school, mentioned it to Stephen Fry… My best mate from school is an engineer. The boundaries of tech have constantly excited me. Even AI. How can we USE it? Resistance is futile.

Plus they suit me okay so I don’t look out of place in them. They’ll be brilliant when I walk Shikoku. But I’ll need to get quicker at editing, and be efficient about clearing space in my phone.

I want to get good at the tech so I can go into nature and do analogue things and demystify those things for people who might otherwise block themselves from ever trying to do them. If that involves recording myself having an expensive meal and getting pissed, I’ll take one for the team, baby.

I edited it to be less than twenty minutes. Mostly I tried to make the cuts not too jumpy but there are lessons I needed in the filming. Why is the camera cycling like that sometimes? I even show how it stops happening – I think it might be a focus thing that’s needed. Lessons lessons. It’s a whole world out there.

Here’s the link. Tread softly…

Sunday Sunday. In the woods.

I mostly sat outside reading today. If I think about global politics I just get frustrated so I’m trying to just get into my creative headspace. Joseph Campbell is not necessarily the best coping mechanism, as he is looking at the ways in which stories are hardwired into us, and the things that are annoying me the most right now are the easy stories being constructed or augmented by friends of mine who have evolved the pattern matching we need to escape predators, but not the critical thinking we need to escape manipulators. The algorithm is serving me so much wilful rubbish that I’m getting a skewed perspective. I’m constantly astonished that people can delude themselves into all the anti-science/anti-community over time stuff. As a result I’m fed it by the internet, trying to coax me into posting something snarky.

I went to Jempsons yesterday and bought up loads of hearty food so I could just stay here today and know that everything was in hand. I’ve eaten really well and just hung out with the cats again. I took my DJI Neo drone out today, and messed around a bit working out what is possible easily. It doesn’t go very high, which surprises me. You can get perspective with it, sure, and once I’ve got used to it I’ll be able to make it all work nicely without crashing it. It’s a starter piece of kit. I’m not going on any walks in the near future, but I want to have a straight line between shooting with it and editing the footage before I do, so I’ll likely be messing around with it whenever possible. I’ve even upgraded the memory on my phone, just as I was constantly running out of space whenever I tried to do anything. Video editing was never gonna happen. Now perhaps I’ll be able to get some stuff done. Not that I’m doing anything interesting right now. But practice makes perfect. Maybe I’ll record myself doing something mundane and then shout-narrate it in the most annoying voice I can muster so it sounds like all the rest of the stuff out there. Say a few earnest things. Try and work out how to make the soundscape consistent. There’s a lot of noise. I’ve always liked going towards noise. And the comforting thing is that most of the stuff out there is objectively terrible so there’s no performance anxiety.

But I quickly got bored of tech and decided to just chill with the animals and the sun. Birds have started coming to the fatballs I brought yesterday. The cats are communicative and friendly. I had a momentary issue when the neighbour’s dog got in and wolfed Rajah’s bowl of dry food. But largely I’ve been on my own with a book in the sun. It doesn’t get cold until late evening, the garden gets great light. I’m calm, and there’s a whole week left here. mmm

Sun.

I had to keep reminding myself not to do anything.

My car is full of clothes to be sorted. I left them there.

I’ve got a drone I want to practice with. I didn’t fly it.

I did a tiny bit of admin around all the events we’ve been pitching for. I’ve been really struggling to make sense of how to pitch for some of this stuff as I can’t make it too expensive but I also need to pay myself and other practitioners what we are worth. I’ve been asked for an hourly breakdown by one person and that’s kinda absurd, cos do we include the years spent learning the craft? Sure they can get JoFucktor for tuppence and the client will feel it. Or they can get people with chops who will make the event better. And I’m almost done giving a crap helping them choose.

But that noise was the only noise in my head today really. I mostly just chilled out.

At about 11am I drove to Jempson’s in order to get fatballs for the birds. I was sitting in the garden beforehand and realised there was nothing for them to eat despite tables being out. Sure there are two cats here and one of them kills things efficiently, so a bird table is avian Squid Game. But I like seeing them flutter around. I reckon the cats usually can’t get them in time. I’ve seen plenty of dead rodents, no dead birds. I’m gonna keep putting food and water out. Carlos is too old, Rajah is mostly used to ground-runners.

I’ve had such a relaxed day.

Last night Carlos made sure at least two thirds of the bed were his. I slept fine but occasionally got pawed if I strayed. Tonight I’ll encroach a bit, take up more bed, push to half. Better to move slower with cats, I feel. If they hate you then it’s war. If it’s gradual they don’t even notice they’ve lost territory. I’m here long enough to be slow. I’ve just shuffled around today, here in the silent woods. Nobody comes down the potholed track once darkness falls. It is just me and the cats in this bungalow and you can hear your tinnitus.

I’m locking up and getting into my bit of the bed. It’s not even ten yet. I’m fine with this. More sun tomorrow. I mostly sat in the garden with my shirt off today reading The Masks of God. Life is good.