A brave wind

I’ve plainly been staring at this computer screen for too long today. My eyes feel itchy, my back is aching and I just want to go to bed! I’ve been working for two solid days on the first movement of the motet. The inspiration stage is over and I’ve entered the time-consuming process of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. My plan is to have a finished second draft before I start work on the Yorkshire Symphony next Friday. Bitter past experience has proved that I can’t usefully work on two creative projects at the same time. If the motet is still playing on my mind I won’t be able to start all over again with a symphony featuring 300 Yorkshire-based musicians. Can someone remind me why I don’t just do something simple?


I finally walked out on Cafe Nero today and moved next door to Costa. Such a short trip, but it was like walking out on a partner and knowing you’re never going to return. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a mix-tape of salsa music which just got louder and louder. I kept expecting to see some kind of carnival making its way between the tables. I’d just hit a brick wall with a really complicated bar of music and I almost threw my enormous mug across the room.

Entering Costa was like entering heaven. Everything was still and the music was barely registering above the sound of the air-conditioning. A very strange little girl sat in front of me at one point. She was holding a fluffy animal, which I suspect was some kind of dog but it might have been a lamb. She decided to sing the entire soundtrack of Glee, whilst cooing over the animal as though it were some kind of fluffy baby. She wasn’t singing very well and perhaps unsurprisingly the poor dog/lamb eventually lashed out. I thought I was going to be forced to witness the sort of mauling that you read about in the Daily Mirror but fortunately the situation calmed down, and eventually the Glee soundtrack stopped. Perhaps the dog or lamb had died of boredom or become the soft toy that the strange little girl obviously thought she was holding.

Sunday April 8th, 1660, and the weather was calm again. Pepys was feeling perky, although his head was aching all day. There was a “brave” wind, which carried the boat at high speed and simultaneously inspired our hero, whose writing became so descriptive one could almost smell the sea air. He wrote about the various masts and shipwrecks which the fleet used for navigational purposes. I assume there’s nothing that screams "dangerous water" louder than a sunken ship. The Nazeby seemed to be playing a game of cat and mouse with a boat heading to the East Indies and Pepys spent some time hanging out of a window, presumably with his binoculars, ogling at the pretty women on board. Fears for his dear wife stranded in Buckinghamshire were probably for a few blissful moments allayed.