Writers are strange wights

As are dolls' house makers.

I made bread last night

Crackling, chewy sourdough bread.

It *must* have been good.

I decided to take half the loaf into work to distribute at the breakfast
meeting (just showing off really) and flung it into a bag this morning.

Halfway across the park I look down - and there is a small crowd of grey
squirrels (I.e - 3) around my ankles, looking expectantly at the bag.

I half expected one to start tugging on my sock in supplication.

Dubai Film Festival - here I come!

Just got the accreditation through - I'll be in Dubai for the festival
next month.
Excited and apprehensive in equal measure - sounds about right.

Recession?

I very rarely travel between 5 and 7; I got out of the habit years ago,
when trains were crowded, hot and sticky. I made more sense to stay
close to work, drinking coffee and writing for a few more hours before
heading home.

Today I went home at 6.15 because I had bread dough rising in the
kitchen, and realised that if I didn't get it punched down and shaped by
7 I would be pulling out of the oven at midnight.

I was shocked to get a seat.
The train wasn't empty by any means, but 2 years ago, at 6.15, I would
have been travelling on my hind legs, with my nose pressed against
someone else's back or armpit.

Anyway. The bread is punched down and rising again, and I am in my
local boozer, drinking a very nice red wine and hacking about at Act 3
AGAIN.

I find myself checking satellite photos of the valley...

... to calculate how much sunlight, and therefore, how much air, the
Stone Caravan is getting in my absence.

Who knows, one day I may be able to leave salt, sugar and matches on the
mantelpiece for use when I return, and not have to polish mildew from
shoes and chair legs.

I have achieved total blackout

Once the bedside light is extinquished I cannot see my hand in front of
my face.

This is bliss.

Thank you.

16 hours later, on an entirely different wifi network...

... and firefox/google is *still* serving all my requests in SWEDISH.

I'm guessing you are single -

- balding guy sitting 10 feet from me in Cafe Nero.

Because I can still hear you suck your teeth at this distance, and if I
want to smack you over the head within 5 minutes, it is clear that any
marriage would have ended in spousi-cide over the breakfast table a
decade or so ago.

Also, woman sitting opposite. If I can tell from the tinny thud from
your ear buds not only that you are listening to Maggie May by Rod
Stewart, but *also* recognise the exact recording....

a.) you are playing this much too loud.
b.) you will be deaf before you reach 25.
c.) if an irate commuter doesn't kill you first

Heavens Preserve us - it works...

The sun finally came out at 10 this morning, and the solarventi started
a steady whirr, pushing dry fresh air into the heart of the stone
caravan; this it continued to do for the next 4.5 hours.

This is what it was supposed to do, as long as the sun was shining on it.

What was more exciting - when I came back into the house after stacking
the woodpile, for the first time in my recollection, the stone caravan
smelt of...

... fresh air. (and a bit a smoke)

It's too early to break out the (elderflower) champagne, but not too
early to experiment with closing the window.
Down comes all the green plastic mesh (to start a new life as a mat for
muddy sections of the garden path).
Up go the sashes.
Bye bye owl pellets - you won't be missed, I have a fine collection now,
thank you.
Bye bye dessicated corpse of the swallow that couldn't.

Now I have to leave you for several weeks; little solar fan, please do
your thing, and keep my house dry-ish!

Silent Night

The south east is battered by storms -here in the North East, all is
still, damp and warm.

The solarventi was installed on Wednesday, and apparently started
pumping warm air into the house almost immediately. Barry approves,
thinks every house in the area should have one.

Alas, I was not here to see it, so I have my fingers crossed that the
sun will break through tomorrow morning. It's too early to say if it
will solve the basic problem, but the signs are good.

Also on the plus side of the balance sheet - it is so unobtrusive it is
barely visible, even from the pasture - the panel is grey, and smaller
than the window.

Now it's dark, and I am having problems keeping the fire alight (the
woodpile, unstacked for 3 weeks, is damp and steaming) and have yet to
venture upstairs to make the bed.

Swedish is not one of the languages I read...

... so why the £*ck does the East Coast* line WiFi route all traffic via
Sweden, ensuring that all google results are served in Swedish -
including my Blog dashboard.

(* until 10 hours ago the National Express East Coast line, now
re-nationalised!)

What makes writing "cinematic" rather then "televisual"?

My own (very) rough rule of thumb...

When you express of the essence of the script-

- is it an image -

- or an idea?

I have always loved November; it starts with Halloween, which growing up
in Wales was celebrated with turnip head lanterns and apple bobbing),
then the local fair used to park outside our front door for 2 days of
thumping disco music, hot dogs, and ancient rides and dodgems. Barely
is the last candy floss stick swept away before Bonfire night and the
lovely smell of gunpowder ... and then the rest of the month unwinds in
a flurry of red and ginger foliage, early frost, slick mists and coal smoke.

The best, is of course, at the end of the month, when for once the
entire world does revolve around the correct axis, in a stupendous
celebration of the anniversary of the birth of - ME!

Why, I believe in the US they are so overwhelmed by the amazing event
that they call the festival of my birth "Thanksgiving" - and sacrifice
many Turkeys in my honour.

Colour me impressed!

The Ethiopian script, T'sion, has, in the 2nd and 3rd acts 6 distinct
narrative lines to follow, and I have always found it hard to
concentrate on fine tuning one without fracturing the others, or
breaking the script apart like a engine on the kitchen table.

In the past I have tried tagging and colour coding them on the page to
visualise they way they interact... Or writing 6 different threads and
reintegrating them.

But just like that engine on the kitchen table, I always end up with a
widget that gets left behind.

But I have just started to "grey out" any scenes that don't relate to
the thread I am concentrating on - literally changing the colour of the
words on the screen to the palest grey MSWord can provide. I can still
see the other scenes, I can still calculate the rhythm, the counterpoint
of one character's story against the other, while only editing the
single story as it winds it's way across 8 years and two continents...

Then, when I'm done - highlight the whole document, chose black - and
voilà! the whole script reappears.

I can't believe it took me so long to work this one out!

...my head hurts...

I don't know if the pounding is my hangover or the rain hammering on the
roof.

Either makes the idea of going out to stack my woodpile very unappealing.