Brighton Rocks

Today has been a beautiful summer's day and I feel sun-kissed, salty-skinned and utterly carefree! I woke up this morning feeling a little blue, so Nathan immediately packed me into the car and asked where we were heading. We called Meriel and she was up for an adventure, so we decided to go to Brighton for the day. And what a glorious day...

We kicked things off on the North Lanes, with veggie breakfasts in a cafe called Breakfast At Tiffany's. Great food, but the waitress, a surly Pole, did her best to leave an unpleasant taste in our mouths!

I particularly wanted to visit Brighton, because I'd bought my favourite tie on a trip to the city earlier in the year, and wanted to see if the shop sold the same thing in different colours. It did, so I proudly walked away with a bag filled with a variety of ties in an assortment of colours. I also bought myself a fern green bowler hat, which felt like a fairly decadent purchase, but I'd always wanted one and it was cheap!

We went to the beach and stood on a concrete platform which jutted out into the sea. We posed for photographs as the waves threw bucket loads of foam all over our backs. Meriel swam - and weed - in the  sea, which we found very amusing. In fact, she was the perfect companion for the entire day; a brilliant blend of wittiness and spontaneity.

We went to the pier and ate deformed doughnuts, one of which was plucked from my hand by an outrageous seagull! One moment, I was bringing it up to my mouth, the next, I was aware of a fluttering sound above my head and the doughnut was sailing into the sky attached to the beak of a very naughty bird!

We went on the waltzers and were disappointed not to have a greasy, burly traveller in 80s denim, standing behind us, spinning the cars extra fast to induce a fit of vomiting. Meriel said that the ride was making her feel rather strange in the vagazzel department, which made us laugh for hours. It has to rank with her all time best quote, which was uttered in Cambridge in the summer of 1996; "I'm so happy, I'm jealous of myself!"

We drove to Lewes through country lanes lined with green tunnels of trees. The sun was shining through the branches and shafts of brilliant light were cascading in all directions. It resembled the sort of laser display you might see at the O2.

We called in on Rupert and Uncle Bill, who is due to give birth tomorrow. She is enormous, but carrying all her extra weight in the bump itself, which is the healthiest looking pregnant belly I've ever seen!

She made us scones, which we had with blackberry jam and lashings of cream, whilst looking at photos from the days when we all looked like children. I've known Hils and Mez for almost 20 years; a fact which I find almost bewildering. I almost can't remember not knowing them!

350 years ago, Pepys went to visit Lady Sandwich, and found her in mourning for her brother, who had died that day of the "spotted fever," which could have been anything from measles to typhus, I guess. It was a day of death. Elizabeth was also at a funeral and arrived home later in the day with a remembrance ring, which was the custom back then.  I guess no one was far from death in the 17th century - and the plague still hadn't happened!

Boo!

It’s official... I’m lonely. It’s a Saturday, and once again I’ve been in Costa all day working. I left it rather too late to organise something sociable to do and called Nathan just now to see if he fancied a bite to eat in town between his box office shift and performing in his show. He warned me off. It’s Gay Pride, and apparently the whole of central London is chock-a-block with homos. I’m sure they all smell lovely, but they’re rammed into Soho like sardines, which is, in fairness, my idea of hell.

It’s a lovely evening and I can smell barbecues. I might just go and introduce myself to one of the neighbours, or maybe I'll just sit and watch telly instead.

I wish there was something more interesting to write, but there’s not.

Tuesday July 2nd 1661, and Pepys went to Westminster Hall. It was term time, which meant the place was rammed with MPs and various hangers on. He met his cousin Roger, who enquired about their mutual Uncle Robert, who was unwell. Pepys had received a letter from his father, the previous day, which said the poor man was “by fits stupid, and like a man that is drunk, and sometimes speechless.” It doesn’t sound like he was long for the world.

Pepys had yet another singing lesson with his teacher, Theodore Goodgroome, and then went off to the theatre, but not just any theatre; Sir William Davenant’s “Opera” house in Lincoln’s Inn. It had only been open four days, and was built in a converted real tennis court. It featured the first movable scenery and the first proscenium arch in the world, and Pepys was thrilled. It was a royal command performance and as the audience waited patiently for the King’s arrival, one of the boards in the roof broke, and sent a huge amount of dust cascading onto the audience below, which fortunately was taken with a good dose of humour. The play was acted well, but for one character, who sadly got hissed off stage.

I was once bood off stage... at secondary school. I was asked to introduce the acts in an end of term show, and couldn’t have been very popular at the time. I was only about twelve or so, and the whole school was there. I think the older kids kicked things off, and every time I came on to introduce someone else, the booing got louder and louder until no one could hear a word that I was saying. I remember trying to laugh it off, like I was somehow in on the joke, and finding it all hysterically funny, but it was mortified. I was looking across the audience, and even seeing my close friends shouting, hissing and laughing with the best of them. I was eventually hauled off by my form tutor. The next year I wanted to perform in a little skit, but was so worried the same thing would happen again, that I said I’d only appear behind a staging block, pretending to be George from Rainbow, using a pink rubber glove because we didn’t have a fury hippo. Speaking of Rainbow, didn't the bloke who did the voices for George and Zippy recently die? Yes, he did. I've just googled it. His name was Roy Skelton, and he was a genius.

Which is which?

Out damned polyp, I knew him, Horatio

I'm on a crowded, stinking tube,  returning to Highgate from my second hospital appointment of the week. The subject of today's meeting was my vocal chords and whether or not they've recovered from the operation. It looks like they haven't, which doesn't mean they won't...

I didn't see Mr Rubin. I saw another member of his team, who shoved a tiny torch on a long flexible tube up one of my nostrils, and down my throat, which was both surreal and curiously unpleasant, particularly when I swallowed. As he studied the image he was seeing, I wondered how often patients vomit uncontrollably in his presence, and decided it must be a regular peril of the job.

Unfortunately, as I've suspected for the last few days, I have some kind of virus, which means everything's swollen and inflamed down there. It was therefore impossible for him to get a sense of how well  I've recovered, so I was sent away with another course of proton pump inhibitors in case the inflammation was the result of acid reflux. It's deeply tedious and way too reminiscent of the court case for my liking. Is it too much to ask for a clear result for something that's on the cards this year? More treading water... My friend Matt talks about alternating between years of surging forward and years of consolidation. I suppose all the awards I've been winning could theoretically be part of a consolidation process...

The one piece of good news is that the biopsy result has come back negative. The polyp, or what I think he suddenly started referring to as a nodule, is not cancerous, and apparently formed as a result of over-use. That's something of a weight off my mind. 

There's not much else to report. I spent most of the day in Costa scoring the fourth movement of the Symphony for Yorkshire for brass band; a long overdue promise I made to myself months ago. I think it's going well, but am mindful of the fact that I tend to write overly  "trilly" music for brass bands, which is actually not much fun to play. Strip it back... Thin it out. Cut half of the notes...

350 years ago, and Pepys had a day that any bored Highgate housewife would envy. He went shopping in the City for a chest of drawers and an Indian gown, and then spent the afternoon having a singing lesson. Not much else is reported other than that the chest of drawers was a "fine" one. I'm relieved, obviously! 

Polyps and nodules

I'm on a crowded, stinking tube,  returning to Highgate from my second hospital appointment of the week. The subject of today's meeting was my vocal chords and whether or not they've recovered from the operation. It looks like they haven't, which doesn't mean they won't...

I didn't see Mr Rubin. I saw another member of his team, who shoved a tiny torch on a long flexible tube up one of my nostrils, and down my throat, which was both surreal and curiously unpleasant, particularly when I swallowed. As he studied the image he was seeing, I wondered how often patients vomit uncontrollably in his presence, and decided it must be a regular peril of the job.

Unfortunately, as I've suspected for the last few days, I have some kind of virus, which means everything's swollen and inflamed down there. It was therefore impossible for him to get a sense of how well  I've recovered, so I was sent away with another course of proton pump inhibitors in case the inflammation was the result of acid reflux. It's deeply tedious and way too reminiscent of the court case for my liking. Is it too much to ask for a clear result for something that's on the cards this year? More treading water... My friend Matt talks about alternating between years of surging forward and years of consolidation. I suppose all the awards I've been winning could theoretically be part of a consolidation process...

The one piece of good news is that the biopsy result has come back negative. The polyp, or what I think he suddenly started referring to as a nodule, is not cancerous, and apparently formed as a result of over-use. That's something of a weight off my mind. 

There's not much else to report. I spent most of the day in Costa scoring the fourth movement of the Symphony for Yorkshire for brass band; a long overdue promise I made to myself months ago. I think it's going well, but am mindful of the fact that I tend to write overly  "trilly" music for brass bands, which is actually not much fun to play. Strip it back... Thin it out. Cut half of the notes...

350 years ago, and Pepys had a day that any bored Highgate housewife would envy. He went shopping in the City for a chest of drawers and an Indian gown, and then spent the afternoon having a singing lesson. Not much else is reported other than that the chest of drawers was a "fine" one. I'm relieved, obviously! 

Abba cake

It's Nathan's birthday, and we're sitting with brother Edward and Sascha after a very successful little soirée. Nathan's family came down from Shropshire, laden with cakes an a bucket of strawberries and summer fruits. Nathan's goddaughter and her mother, and his ex partner also came, so it was a real family affair.

I spent the afternoon, like a good wife, slaving over a hot stove. I produced an astonishing amount of food, including a plate of stuffed mushrooms, which were particularly tasty. I also made a jelly, and cheese and pineapple on sticks, because Nathan wanted an old school vibe!

My mother gave him a pineapple cutter for his birthday, which was one of the most exciting things I think I've ever seen. You sort of shove this plastic thing in the top and turn a handle and hey presto, you have a spiral of pineapple, which is ready to eat. A proper party trick.

Nathan's sister made a birthday cake to look like an ABBA single, which has got to be the coolest cake I've ever seen. She opted for the English release of Waterloo, which came out in the year of his birth.

They also helped us to put a cabinet up in the bathroom, so I no longer have to store my shaving things on the floor.

I've stuffed my face and now feel a bit sick.

June 30th, 1661 was a Sunday and Pepys went to St Olave's church before heading off to Westminster to meet the Duke of York, who was still on the war path regarding the delay of the fleet of ships, which we now learn was due to the wind blowing the wrong direction.

Pepys went to Lincoln's Inn to look at the pretty ladies, who must have thought he was utterly mad as he was wondering about singing to himself, specifically practicing trills.

He returned home to find Elizabeth in a blue, which put him into a bad mood. He decided he was spending too much money on clothes and luxuries and vowed to tighten the purse strings. Other than that, he decided he was in good health, but for an almost pathological fear of getting cold, which meant that, despite the incredibly hot weather, he was wearing all manner of layers of clothes, particularly around his waist!

Which one's the cake?

It's Nathan's birthday, and we're sitting with brother Edward and Sascha after a very successful little soirée. Nathan's family came down from Shropshire, laden with cakes an a bucket of strawberries and summer fruits. Nathan's goddaughter and her mother, and his ex partner also came, so it was a real family affair. 

I spent the afternoon, like a good wife, slaving over a hot stove. I produced an astonishing amount of food, including a plate of stuffed mushrooms, which were particularly tasty. I also made a jelly, and cheese and pineapple on sticks, because Nathan wanted an old school vibe!

My mother gave him a pineapple cutter for his birthday, which was one of the most exciting things I think I've ever seen. You sort of shove this plastic thing in the top and turn a handle and hey presto, you have a spiral of pineapple, which is ready to eat. A proper party trick. 

Nathan's sister made a birthday cake to look like an ABBA single, which has got to be the coolest cake I've ever seen. She opted for the English release of Waterloo, which came out in the year of his birth.

They also helped us to put a cabinet up in the bathroom, so I no longer have to store my shaving things on the floor.

I've stuffed my face and now feel a bit sick. 

June 30th, 1661 was a Sunday and Pepys went to St Olave's church before heading off to Westminster to meet the Duke of York, who was still on the war path regarding the delay of the fleet of ships, which we now learn was due to the wind blowing the wrong direction. 

Pepys went to Lincoln's Inn to look at the pretty ladies, who must have thought he was utterly mad as he was wondering about singing to himself, specifically practicing trills.

He returned home to find Elizabeth in a blue, which put him into a bad mood. He decided he was spending too much money on clothes and luxuries and vowed to tighten the purse strings. Other than that, he decided he was in good health, but for an almost pathological fear of getting cold, which meant that, despite the incredibly hot weather, he was wearing all manner of layers of clothes, particularly around his waist! 

Crappy Rub Sniff

So this morning, I took myself to a dentistry hospital on Gray’s Inn Road to have a lump examined on my gum. I spotted it about 4 months ago and showed it to the dentist who referred me to the hospital. It hasn’t got any larger, and it doesn’t hurt or bleed, or anything like that, but obviously my cousin’s experience with throat cancer preys heavily on my mind, and it never harms to be told that you’re a hypochondriac...

As it turns out, there is something wrong with me, but I’m pleased to report that it’s nothing serious. I have a “mandibular torus,” which is basically a sort of bone spur, which may or may not get bigger with time. If it gets enormous, I can have it removed, but at the moment it’s just a few mili-metres across. I immediately looked on line and found some horrific pictures of people with similar problems, but you’d have to look very hard to see mine, and even then you’d need to peer at my lower inside gum with a specially adapted light for a very long time.

I came home from the hospital and worked in the cafe for several hours before taking myself on a whistle stop tour of print shops in North London. The Pepys Motet and A Symphony for Yorkshire are both being entered for a major composing award, but the judges need three copies of each of the scores in order to do their thing. That’s a lot of photocopying – 300 pages in fact - as both works are pretty lengthy. I copied them at A3 size, but still each line is tiny. The judges will need magnifying glasses to glean anything useful from them, but A3 is the biggest-sized paper within any reasonable budget.

The first print place I visited quoted me £110 for the job, which instinctively felt incredibly high, particularly as they’d printed my Pepys scores last year, and done a lovely job, for a fraction of the cost. When I pointed this fact out, the man behind the counter got belligerent and said, "what happened last year is irrelevant. Times change." "Yes" I thought, "we’ve sunk even further into a recession, and if you double your prices, you’ll go out of business twice as fast." I obviously didn't say this out loud. I wasn't feeling angry enough, so I thanked him profusely for his time and told him I'd give the matter some thought. I left, went to Finchley Central, got served by a lovely chatty women, and was charged £40. Bish, bash, bosh as they say...

I’ve been running... to Finsbury Park and back. The world, his wife, their dog and their toddler were running along Parkland Walk. It’s amazing what a bit of sunshine will do!

Finsbury Park backwards is Krapy rub snif. Upton Park backwards is Krap not Pu. These thoughts amuse me when my legs feel like jelly.

350 years ago, Pepys spent the morning in Deptford, trying to work out why the fleet of ships that, one assumes, had been commissioned to pick up Catherine de Braganza had been delayed. We’re not told where they'd been delayed, or if Sandwich et al were with them, but the Duke of York was in a tizz about the situation. In the afternoon, Pepys returned to the City and went drinking at The Bell on The Strand, next to the famous maypole, which had been erected (by sailors) in readiness for May Day 1661, as a finger up to the cheery Cromwell, who’d torn it down. It was the largest maypole in London, until it was blown down by high winds in the 1670s.

Pepys was drinking with his old gang of clerk friends, many of whom he’d not seen for years. One, James Chetwind, came in for particular criticism. "Mr. Chetwind by chewing of tobacco is become very fat and sallow, whereas he was consumptive." Who knows, really why it was better to be fat and sallow than consumptive. Perhaps consumptive had a different meaning back then? I always thought fat was a good thing in the 17th Century, so perhaps the observation was actually a compliment.