Armistice

You know when you go out and immediately realise you've completely under-estimated how cold it is? That! Except, after I'd started sweating a little, everything started feeling unpleasantly sticky.

It's been the sort of day that I despise. Mizzly, drizzly, a little windy. Everyone walks around with looks of thunder plastered on their faces. Everyone you pass has a frown chiseled to their foreheads. Everything looks grey, from the sky and the River Thames to every building you pass. Grey, grey, grey. People get angry because they can't walk along texting or talking on the phone because the rain water gets into the mechanics of smart phones and makes them go temporarily wrong in peculiar ways.

I went to see my osteopath this morning, and, as usual, he gave me a bit of a pummelling, telling me I was the patient he dealt with who could take THE most intense deep tissue massage. I felt a little sick afterwards and my nose went all runny; a sure sign that he'd dislodged some serous toxins, which I'm hoping I don't somehow reabsorb.

11 am on Armistice Day happened whilst I was in the waiting room. Just as I stood up to announce to the room that the moment had arrived (I tend to think people like to know these things) the doors flew open and a group of osteopaths arrived to pick up their 11 o'clock appointments. There was mayhem in a space which was lovely and calm just two minutes before. I felt a little sad, but I would have made myself very unpopular making an announcement in the midst of all that. So I took my hat off and sat for a moment, thinking about the Leeds Pals, and the Barnbow Lassies, and the good folk of Coventry.

I met Michelle Turkie again for lunch, which is something we may do quite regularly over the next few months. It's so nice to catch up with her and see her smiling face. She gave me some apples from her tree; tiny little bright red things which were exquisitely tasty. I had two and two were offered up to pass onto Nathan, so on my way back home, I stopped off at the Shaftesbury Theatre and duly handed the contraband on.

I came home and wrote more of the Brass script. It was somewhat slow-going, as the opening of act two is a pretty lengthy song, and lyrics obviously take a great deal longer than script, particularly when you're reliant on an online rhyming dictionary!

I went running in the rain. It's a very liberating thing to do, especially when you find yourself brushing past fir trees, hanging over the suburban pavements, thick with water, which smack you in the face with an amazingly refreshing blast of raindrop joy.

More Brass, (I even wrote on the tube back into town) and then we met Jim Zalles and Matthew for dinner at Amalfi on Old Compton Street. It was just lovely to see them. I'd not had much of an opportunity to talk to Matthew before, and found him to be a very fine chap. He's the first person I've ever met from Milton Keynes.

We went home via Charing Cross police station to drop off some keys which Nathan had found on the street outside Bar Italia on Frith Street. Every good day deserves a good deed!