Stews

I didn't sleep much last night, so I've been a bit distant for much of the day. Tiredness aside, it's unacceptable to start a new week with laziness, so I worked like the clappers, first on yet another application for funding - get back on that horse - and then on my website which is a pitiful mess at the moment: completely out of date. I think I must have expected it to magically update itself because I've been blithely attaching it to all kinds of applications, despite the fact that I've not touched it for two years! Self-promotion has never exactly been my strong point.

We went to the gym. They're still repairing holes in the road on all the streets around us, so the car journey up into Highgate Village and back down the other side is twice the length that it used to be.

After returning from the gym, I worked on Em and then on the Nene project. I spent the evening listening to, and logging the various field recordings I made on my journey, which include all sorts of bird noises, trains, military jets and tolling bells in Wisbech. I also did a fair amount of composing as I walked, so there's a lot of me trying out little melodies. Singing, in the main, really badly and then giggling away like a lunatic. Listening back to the sounds of the epic walk was rather comforting. It was a safe space in a funny sort of way. I didn't have to think about anything other than getting from A to B. I looked forward to simple things like sitting on a bench or having a sip of tea. My mind has already started playing tricks on me. Because I walked during a period of unseasonably sunny weather, I've started imagining I did the walk in the summer! I'm surprised to hear myself on the recordings chatting away to myself in rather good spirits. Even the day after the awful trip to A and E. The recordings are hugely atmospheric, right down to everything suddenly sounding echoey on the mist-bedecked fens. I still find it difficult to believe I actually completed the walk. I still feel an immense sense of pride in myself for doing so.

We had a vegetarian stew today to use the lovely vegetables Little Welsh Nathalie left on our stairs. It was unbelievably delicious. 

Is it weird that I've eaten half a tin of pears after tea every night this year so far? Does that count as one of my five a day, I wonder?