A significant year

Fiona and Paul popped into Costa today on their way for a stroll around Highgate Cemetery. They left almost immediately because, even though it was only lunchtime, Fiona was worried that the light would go. I don't blame her. This is how it must feel to live in the North of Sweden. I haven't seen sunlight for at least three days; just a misty, moisty murkiness which I'm sure will be making most Londoners feel horribly depressed.


It's strange to think that the year is almost over and more curiously that I’ve written this blog every single day. I shall keep it going for the time being, not least because of something an astrologist told me ten years ago. His name was Dr Morse and he was a gift from Philippa's Mum. His flat in Swiss Cottage seemed to be evaporating into a cloud of melancholic tobacco smoke and his hacking cough made me wonder whether the session might need to be concluded in an ambulance. Nevertheless, he’d carefully charted my stars and pointed out that almost all my planets were in Leo, and those that weren't were hanging about in other fire signs, which will come as no surprise to those who know me. He took me through everything in great detail, which I’ve subsequently forgotten, but I do remember that my significant year was supposedly 2011. At the time I was bitterly disappointed. It seemed like forever away. I thought I’d be grey and wrinkly at the age of 36, and unable to enjoy or deal with whatever the significance brought. I even wondered if "significant" meant I was going to die in the year. We'll have to wait and see. Anyway, if you're at all interested in cosmology, you might want to keep following this blog to see how a “significant year” develops!

I've just had my ears syringed by a nurse. During the party two nights ago I absentmindedly stuck a pen lid in my left ear to see if I could find any wax to play with. Unfortunately, I managed to dislodge enough to completely cover my eardrum and make me go deaf. A very valuable lesson was learnt at that moment. It felt like the nurse was pushing some kind of pneumatic drill into my eardrum, but it seems to have done the trick. We ended up with a sink full of crazy blobs of glistening wax, all of which had come out of my ear. She seemed surprised and fairly horrified when I picked a piece up to smell it. Some people are so squeamish!

I now have a whole new register of soundwaves to listen to. Everything has more of a sheen to it. It suddenly feels like the world has been digitally remastered by someone from the 1980s. As I walked away from the surgery, I could hear a crazy titter-tattering, which I realised was a woman in stilettos at least 30 metres away.

350 years ago, Pepys spent the day, a Sunday, visiting various churches, which was one of his favourite pastimes. Most of the people he called in on were either taking physic (ie taking medicine which would purge their system, and lead to them needing to stay indoors for a day) or sulking and locked away in various chambers. It seems the world was winding down for the end of the year in 1660 as well. Pepys ended up at Westminter Abbey; “seeing the great confusion of people that come there to hear the organs.” Organs, of course, hadn’t been seen in churches for many years, so they'd became something of a tourist attraction.