Ice cream on tarmac

I’ve got a bit sloppy in relation to my blog of late. I don't think I'm writing words that I would particularly want to read, and I keep almost forgetting to write anything at all. It’s 11.30pm, for example, and I’ve only just realised that I’ve not yet written today's entry. This is probably as much to do with the fact that I've very little to say. It’s been one of those days where I’ve just, well, sort of existed.

I went up into the village first thing, and sat in Costa until lunchtime, watching and listening to countless recordings of various musicians from Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. It’s very important for me to know exactly who’s out there, so that I can go to a meeting planned for Tuesday and make everyone feel secure that they're potentially backing the right project, and furthermore, that I’m the right man for the job. That said, I have folk music now coming out of my ears, to the extent that it's becoming impossible to tell one fiddle player from the next. At one stage today I was even wondering whether Only Men Aloud, that highly cheesy male voice choir from South Wales, would be a good addition to the project. I'm pleased to say that it was their singing Total Eclipse of the Heart that made me realise how wrong I was! I've never heard such a dreadful arrangement of that awesome song... and one of the tenors got way too close to a microphone. Here they are being represented by little lego men, which needs to be seen to be believed!

It was all slightly tragic in Costa today. A community police officer had set up a little surgery on one of the tables at the front of the cafe. She had her little hat on, and was displaying a little sign and lots of leaflets about car crime and anti social behaviour, which she proudly laid out in front of her, but in the hour that she sat there, not a single person went to talk to her. I wondered for a long time what I could go and say to her, but drew a complete blank. So, she sat there, looking a little bit sad and lonely, before packing her leaflets into a bag, and taking the little sign down...

I went to the gym after lunch and jumped around a lot, before returning home and I’ve sat on the sofa ever since; one eye on the telly, the other on my computer as I continue my in-depth research.

Nathan has gone to watch some cabaret tonight, so it’s just me and the rats, one of whom has just jumped onto my lap and badly scratched my thigh. I've been wanting to eat a Milk Tray strawberry centred chocolate all evening, but don't have any.

The 10th March, 1661 was a Sunday. Pepys went to St Olave’s and heard a "good" sermon read by Mr Mills. He returned home for a “poor Lenten dinner” of coleworts (cabbage, I’m told) and bacon. I’m not altogether sure that eating bacon counts as giving up meat, but I guess the will was still there. My Nana didn’t think bacon was meat either. She had a similar view about chicken. When we arrived at her house, we’d always have the same conversation. I’d tell her I was a veggie, and she’d say; “have some chicken then” to which I’d respond “but I don’t eat meat” and then she’d say; “but chicken’s not meat.” She also used to cook vegetables for hours, until they were soft like blobs of ice-cream on tarmac in the mid day sun.