Climbing mountains

Getting home tonight is set to be something of an adventure. It seems I've missed the last direct train to London from West Worthing. I'm currently on a crawler train to Brighton hoping that I'll be able to make a connection which will get me into London before the last tube leaves either Victoria or London Bridge, but because the current train I'm on is already delayed, I'm not sure this is going to be possible. I hate it when timings go wrong like this. 

The day started brilliantly with a full veggie breakfast on Hove beach with Fiona. How wonderful to be able to emerge from your front door, and be on a beach within two minutes! Starting a day with a blast of salty sea air is surely the antidote to most illnesses?

I was with PK in Worthing by about 11, and we were deep in the world of Pepys after a cup of tea and a fistful of chocolate half-covereds. I thought today was going to be easier than yesterday. We were working on the third movement, the one about the Great Plague, which is slower and far less complicated than the one about the Great Fire. It very quickly emerged that we had our work cut out. Many, many mistakes had been made by the singers. Whole performances had to be melodyned and really surprising people, people with wonderful voices, had obviously struggled in the studio. It is, however, time for me to acknowledge that the Pepys Motet is a highly complicated composition which requires near-virtuoso singing skills, so I have to accept 90% of the responsibility for the difficulties we encountered today! 

We'll get there and it will be extraordinary; genuinely like nothing anyone will ever have heard before, but every CD we eventually press will have blood on its hands! Mine, PKs, all the singers...

I'm going to come back down to Worthing next week to finish off a rough mix. It's no hardship. I adore spending time with PK, and his wonderful partner, Liv, always cooks something spectacular. Today we were treated to noodles with tofu, avocado and cucumber. Just delicious. My only issue is that I feel bad for PK. I brought him onto this project to mix two pieces of music, not give them emergency surgery! 

Part of me longs to walk away from a project with nothing left to do on it. White City lingers on, with Louise the editor struggling to archive the film due to the antiquated programmes and formats she's been expected to use. I had grumpy texts from her yesterday informing me that the traumas continued, and once again I felt bad! 

Fiona's beautiful musical Postcards continue to haunt me today. As a writer, she truly understands the art of simplicity... and simplicity is my Holy Grail. She explained yesterday that she'd spent half an hour playing the same 3-note sequence over and over again until it felt perfect. Perfection! What a glorious word! When I'm in a recording studio a sort of mania descends which is created largely by the appearance of the most ridiculous musical mountain that I'm trying to get everyone to climb which only reveals itself in full as people approach the microphone. It looms from behind a sort of calm mist, and before they know it, they're hurtling towards its jagged peak in a rusty old aeroplane! What my music needs is a Zen master! 

Readers who have embroiled themselves in the saga of my journey home will be thrilled to hear that I've made my connecting train! I'm desperately hoping now that no one's going to come and sit anywhere near me. I long to sit in absolute peace and quiet; a state triggered by a pair of teenaged girls who sat behind me on the train from Worthing to Brighton, giggling and shrieking at almost everything. 

...Unfortunately, I've now been joined by a pair of sighing lovers who are eating wraps and staring longingly  whilst touching each others' bare knees with hummous-covered fingers. They're going to start snogging: I can feel it in my bones, and I'm going to self-defenestrate! 

I don't suppose I have a great deal more to write. I have another manic day earmarked for tomorrow; drinks in Soho at lunchtime followed by an insane trip to Norfolk for the 25th wedding anniversary of someone whose wedding I actually attended. This makes me feel ancient... And rather silly, as it's just dawned on me that I went to the wedding dressed in Charleston-dancing clobber. 

And yes, tragically, I can dance the Charleston. It's the only dance my dyspraxic, spazzy bones will allow me to do! 

Night night.