Nope, no journal here, sorry.

The blog is dead. Long live the photoblogs!

Flickr & Blip

Kx

My camera died. This is a Very Bad Thing, but not the end of the world.

In the meantime, in memory of the much loved Powershot A95, here's a hastily tweaked image of my current favourite building in Italy.

We went there. It was slighty spooky, completely gorgeous, mostly wet and smelt fantastic.

My view floated up through the atrium of a elegant, glass tower - part of a shiny white hotel, all naked and structural - until i saw myself among others scurrying round an upper level, peering behind roman blinds and trying to see which bit of overcast sky to look at for the impending astral showdown. In the end we just picked the brightest side and pulled up the blinds. They were heavy white velvet and wouldn't stay up so we had to hold onto the cords, which got pretty sore and boring, but i forgot all about that when five giant silverblue bubbles started to glow through the clouds, almost in alignment, as big in the sky as the sun, with moons, rings and craters clear to see. The awe, such hush, the sense of epiphany, it was beautiful.

Same night, different dream: an email was sent round explaining that a colleague had just taken the first pill from her government-issue suicide kit. We were all shocked but I couldn't understand everyone's grief, when we all knew the kits comprised two pills to be taken 24 hours apart and therefore she was in fact still alive. No-one else could conceive of not taking the second pill. This one's been stuck in my head ever since.

On the bus from town, hunkering down, a blearily boozed-up old chap clambers on, clutching clothes in a tattered plastic bag, and a battered clarinet.

"Wassat you reading there, that a new book?" to the art-school cool chick up front. She avoids the question, toys with headphones.

"Eh people, are we a happy bus or a sad bus?" Seems no-one knows. Bus moves off and he stumbles a few steps, lets the bag drop, catches clarinet keys on his shirt buttons, blue stripy shirt, skinny arms.

"Hufff, I'll just sit, just sit here then", beside a scarred sneer in tracksuit and cap. Closes his eyes, sways for a minute then starts to play.

Summertime is squeaky but oh so smooth. In The Mood is cheeky and picks up the groove til the feet they're a-tapping. As Time Goes By makes scarface cry...well maybe not, but he's clearly shocked and, with uncertain smile, looks back down the aisle to lead the applause.

"I've not been home since Wednesday you know. Or, no, what day's this? Not been home for...ehh..." He laughs a little, carefully covers the mouthpiece, slumps back to being the did-you-see-how-drunk-that-guy-was guy.

The rest of the way home is awfy quiet.

It was my birthday. We were at a gym in some lovely leafy part of Edinburgh, talking about going for tea at the palace later. Fliss was on the crosstrainer in her gold showgirl costume and the feathered head-dress was bobbing up and down and bashing off the ceiling with every step but she didn't notice and Kathryn turned out to be like Bruce Willis in Unbreakable because she could lift any weight we set her to but was so nonchalant about the whole thing it just became a joke. Then Evs phoned because she couldn't figure out how to get the gym and wasn't i supposed to have a pass for her and what was she going to do if i'd left it at home then suddenly the lights started spinning and it became some crazy desperate mission to go save her so i asked this guy who was a cross between Philip Seymour Hoffman and that guy in Seinfeld i can never remember the name of, and who was getting all red-faced on an exercise bike, if i could borrow his car. He grudgingly said yes and started giving me this endless, precious, over-protective spiel until i had to just grab the keys and run. The car then turned out to be a knackered old white Mini, with fake Cooper stripes spray painted on and terrible poetry pasted all over the roof. Fortunately I didn't have time to read much, and screeched off along big wide rainy desolate roads towards Fountain Park to rescue Evs. My head was pressed into the roof and there were five foot pedals and at least twelve levers around the teeny tiny steering wheel yet somehow it was still nice and easy to drive. But then there was a protest march happening on the Western Approach Road, which got bigger and scarier the closer i got to it, and i was almost right up to the front line with nasty crusties screaming and shouting incoherently and waving blank banners at me before a terrified, teenage yellowjacket turned me back and left me driving the wrong way down a dual-carriageway in what basically became the last two minutes of the Bourne Identity car chase and the Mini was so responsive and zippy it was fantastic fun and there were even crates and stuff to smash through but no big plate of glass. Then someone texted me and i woke up and it was J? saying they couldn't find the gym either and they'd be late anyway because the Queen went to bed early and then i could actually hear them talking to me and they sounded kind of peevish and said my birthday present was probably ruined and just went waffling on and on in that fashion without me ever figuring out who it was and then Graham texted me and i REALLY woke up and it was time to go to Dumfries.

Looked up from my book some hours ago and the world had gone blue with a ghostly glow, which sort of comes across above. Took five minutes to take pictures, then like that...it was gone. Huh?

And now as i type, there's that weird little whistle i hear every night around now. I think it's just somebody calling their cat in, but still makes me think of how every night before bed a friend i now miss used to climb on his windowsill, naked and pretty, to hoot at the moon...

I swam today. It felt gooooood. Couldn't remember the last time, so took an hour to look through old diaries...it's been four years, almost to the day. Now i am not only chlorine-scented but also nostalgia-filled.

Chocolate limes from Carol-In-Finance. We LIKE it when the banks want her business.

My current favourite bit of Chinese wisdom: if you have only two pennies left in the world, with one buy a piece of bread, and with the other buy a lily. Actually i'd substitute croissant and balloon but that's just me.