When will the rain stop?

Cas the rat still seems a little lost as he scampers around the living room. He's spent rather a lot of time hiding away today, although he was never the most gregarious creature. I wish he could talk. My instinct is to pick him up and give him lots of attention, but I’m not sure that’s something he’d appreciate. He must be lonely. He must be.

The requiem re-writes continue at a snail’s pace. I realise I’m now putting an abnormal amount of pressure on myself to make it as good as it can be and as a result have started to question my abilities, really for the first time in my life. I guess when I write music for a film, I’m aware that there’s a visual aspect which can divert the audience, and because of this, I suspect I’m much more capable of being objective. With the requiem, I’m very much on the inside, swimming around within the harmonies, seemingly unable to take enough of a step back to decide whether I’ve written something marvellous or something which is hopelessly over-scored; a vaguely depressing, incredibly static mush. I have never had a great success as a composer and at the back of my mind I keep wondering whether this is because I've never written something which COULD be hugely successful, or simply because I'm just not very good! This constant self-doubting is very rare for me but since the court case, it's occupied a small but very definite place in my mind. I reckon I ought to sue someone! Take the cow back to court!

I suspect I’m not going to have a great deal to say for myself for the next few days because I'm utterly engulfed by the process of writing on one hand, and trying to book string players on the other. I suspect anything I write in this blog will be highly compromised by the fact that my days are concertinaing into one rather endless  and incredibly dull routine at the moment. I get up, I go to the cafe, I write, I come home, I cook lunch, I write, I blink, three hours have passed, I move to the sitting room and switch the television on for company, I write with headphones plugged into my ears, whilst a parade of daytime quizzes flashes past. At 8pm, Nathan calls to tell me he’s on his way back from work. I realise the day is over, I stop writing and turn my attention to the blog and thoughts about what we might eat for our tea and what we might watch on the telly tonight. It gets dark. It rains. It’s a hugely sedentary existence, but part of me doesn’t care. I just need to make sure the requiem is good. I look forward to little things; the next cup of tea, a little walk to the kitchen... It’s a peculiar existence.

How did it get to be May? How did I get to be 37? When will it stop raining, please? The humidity is making me ill.

350 years ago, Londoners were still keenly anticipating the arrival of their new Queen. The King’s mistress, Lady Castlemayne continued to lord it around town, outrageously spending the night in the King’s chambers at Hampton Court. No one seemed to know what effect her flagrant behaviour might have on the forthcoming nuptials. I guess the prevailing sense was that she ought to make herself scarce so that the King could focus on the delecate political task of uniting England and Portugal through sex.