It’s Friday night; reminiscent of early university times, but different in just about the right ways. It’s been quite a work intensive week, and I’m now home alone, doing a little steady work, with coffee and chocolate, and enjoying a terrific array of programmes on BBC4 about British synth-pop in the early 1980s [temporarily available]. In my head ( Read more... )

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Thank you immeasurably for the support. It has been a testing week, not least because it was difficult to make a firm diagnosis for Faye. She was kept afloat by some of the most powerful antibiotics available, but the source of the infection, or at least what was observable after the impact of the treatment, has remained evasive. The signs all ( Read more... )

For those of you who know her, my youngest natural sister, Faye, was taken to the doctors this morning. By 4pm, she was in the intensive care unit at Sunderland Royal Hospital. From being unable to get any doctors called out today, she was attended by up to three at the unit. She has an untraceable infection, which, to me at least, with her other ( Read more... )

Amended from royalarbor.wordpress.com

It is a pleasure to report that our family is expecting a new arrival soon. It is keeping me busy as I am baring the brunt of the physical upheaval.


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I miss you. I miss me. I miss life ( Read more... )

My words will never be good enough. They do not deal with the situation; they do not settle the fractured complexities that harbour themselves; they don’t suffer the test of time; and they struggle to sit right for me. This is a pre-occupation that has refused to go away. I feel a great weight of expectation on my writing. I follow friends’ ( Read more... )

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[In text, not paratext]. [Amended 01/01/09 21:30] There are times when each new entry gets harder to write. It has been three years since any kind of end-of-year eulogy, and this year, in a sad sense, presents the opportunity better than any other to date. Indeed, whether 'eulogy' is the right word, I am not sure, but there are many to thank, and ( Read more... )

It has felt like an almighty marathon. Even more so than the several consecutive days and nights battling to complete my Masters. In the traditions of the long-distance runner, I battled until the end. I am left with the the contradicting, antithetical symptoms of Thomas Wyatt: exhausted, yet restless; proud, yet unsatisfied; epic, yet stoic; ( Read more... )