A new family member

Today was delightful. I did a morning's work and then made my way down to Old Street to see three generations of the Goslett clan. We painted nails, created mini-masterpieces out of tiny plastic beads and caught up on much needed gossip. Deia showed me her new bedroom with its wonderful wall mural and giant toy giraffe, and we examined the strange burrows in their wooden garden table, which Philippa claims to be made by wasps but I'm pretty sure are the product of some kind of leaf-cutting bee.

The plums in the garden were, as I suspect most autumn fruits will be this year, extraordinary. Perfectly formed and not a single one of them munched by wasps. Perhaps the leaf-cutting bees have already claimed the patch! 

The big news of the day, however, was my becoming a god-father again, to Deia's sister, Silver. I was so excited and moved to be asked and shall endeavour to do my duties with alacrity and great charm. I have decided it's important for me to be the godfather who brings magic into children's lives. Actual parents have enough on their plates merely keeping their children alive. Periodically it's highly appropriate for a mad composer to appear from stage left to take the kids on a spiritual adventure. 

I also feel obliged to teach long words to my godchildren. With vocabulary comes power, although I think Deia got a little tired of my insisting that she learned what a hemisphere was and how to differentiate between odd and even numbers. On and on I went until Deia politely said "we've had plenty of your odd and even numbers now. Why don't we play hide a seek with this fan?" Enough said.

I went home via Soho, where I had my hair cut. I told the bloke he could do whatever he liked, wondering if I'd been missing some sort of Holy Hairstyle Grail  for all these years by continually asking it to be short at the sides and slightly longer on top. 

What did I get? The same old, really. Just a little shorter on top, and when I looked at the barber in the mirror, I saw he'd cut my hair exactly the same way as he'd cut his own. For three quid extra, he clippered my beard and afterwards proclaimed "I have created a new man," which felt suitably poetic. 

I walked back to the tube in the searing evening heat. They say the weather will break tomorrow, so I can only assume that this is the last day of summer. Aren't we all meant to go and pick a rose to put in our hats, or something? 

I had an email yesterday from someone who runs a website about the Yorkshire Pals who said he'd only help me if I donated all my earnings from the project to a military charity in honour of the men who fell. Lovely idea, but how would I live for an entire year whilst writing it? I'm already having to batten down the hatches to make what I am being paid work! I think people forgot that creative people a) aren't all filthy rich ponces and b) pay their rents and feed and cloth themselves by working just like anyone else. I suggested that if I donated money to a charity, a sizeable percentage of my donation would go towards paying that charity's workers and executives. We all have jobs to do and my job is composing.