Interlude

Today, by rights, I should be charging around the village making up for all the not-walking that I haven't done for a week. It's not that I've become slothful, it's just that life's been limited so I've been doing more cerebral things than physical things.

Everyone makes lists, don't they? I suspect that everyone doesn't do the things on their lists, too. 

I looked through my diary of personal must-do-this-today orders and shook my head in mock despair. I've done the spaces between the lists instead. 

While clearing out papers and old bills, I found a letter that I wrote to an ex-partner and never sent. Often you don't need to send these missives, because they are about expressing how you feel to yourself rather than communicating those feelings to anyone else. I also have developed a habit of keeping rolls of masking tape, sellotape, gaffa tape and so on that have only about a centimetre of tape left on the roll. I suddenly realised that I could throw away four or five spent rolls of tape that I'd been effectively hoarding for months.

The hardest thing for arty-farty people is the quantity of drawings that you accumulate. I'd meant to set up an Etsy shop this week but became absorbed in other things and didn't. It's something I should really do, as a punishment, perhaps, for being over-productive. Thank God I haven't got a studio! There would be twice as much stuff wallpapering my life. Every time I try to exercise a bit of quality control and throw something away, a little detail winks at me and I have to keep it. For instance, I think I must have about 300 drawings done while listening to Riley and Coe's shows on BBC6. There is something complete about listening to their bantz and the music they play, and choosing a photograph to draw. Even the bad drawings are a record of a particular playlist. I can see the worst one in my mind's eye. Maybe I'll find that one and throw just that one away.

The last drawing that I posted on Instagram was of two portrait artists drawing Adam Blake and Errol Linton's blues band, and a photographer too. The two artists recognised themselves, which is a very weird coincidence. The last time that happened was the bicycle ambulance man in Bloomsbury, who was recognised by another bicycle ambulance man, and who was apparently rather chuffed to have become, in his own words, a 'pin-up'.

I just sat down to say that I've played the nylon-strung guitar for 35 minutes today. That feels like excellent progress and I'll do the same tomorrow before moving on to the electric on Tuesday, which is much more hurty-fingers. It's helping me to learn the words of the new songs too. The urge to burble took over, and now I need to get on with doing nothing.