Life begins

I woke myself up in the night by thrashing around on the bed. I'd managed to throw myself on top of Nathan as though I were attempting to save him from a grenade. This being stressed business is no good at all. My glands are up, my heart is racing. A visit to the gym improved matters a little by giving me a focus for the bolts of adrenaline surging through my body. I think the problem is largely down to my having started a new process on Brass, which, very much like the last one, seems to stretch out in front of me towards the horizon in the form of a monotonous road which I can only walk at a certain pace.

Still, with every day I tick off another song once and for all. Three down, seventeen to go...

At present I'm dividing my day into three shifts. I work from 10-1 at the kitchen table before eating and going to the gym, I then work from 3-6 in Cafe Rustique, walk home, have tea and then work from 7-9.30 with the telly on in the background. I reserve for the evening shift the sorts of tasks I can do with my eyes shut, namely the formatting of parts, which basically involves making everything look pretty.

I find myself looking forward to the most surreal things during the day. Another ten bars of detailed work and I'll allow myself a quick look at emails or a cup of tea or a little stretch. The walk up Dartmouth Park Hill and through Waterlow Park is the absolute highlight of the day. I take the opportunity to write this blog or catch up with phone calls. My mind, for a glorious 35 minutes, is taken away from the minuscule world of orchestration and into the sunshine and green trees of North London.

There's really nothing else to write. Nathan came home last night, which was an unexpected surprise, but it was jolly nice to have breakfast and lunch with him this morning. I take every opportunity to remind him that he's now a year older than me. I used to have the same with my brother in reverse. For the month of August I was only a year younger than him, and then his birthday would come around again, and suddenly he was my big brother once more.

When do we stop wanting to be older? Is it at the age of 21 or 30?