Shelves

The house is looking quite spruced after our extensive decorating of the last nine months. As I sit writing Mrs Hora and Jose are painting the kitchen, this will mean the whole of our downstairs has been done up, hurrah! That the stairs, landing and stairs to up, up have also been done is a bonus.

Yesterday I managed to put up a shelf in the hall, above the new hanging area, and today have added one to the stairwell up, up. There are hardbacks in the hall now, Susan Hill, Norman Colins, Jojo Moyes and Samantha Harvey predominantly. Today's shelf is stacked full of poetry, Keats, Coleridge, Owen, Sassoon, Yeats, Thomas, Mew, Cope, Redmond and plenty more. Above the poetry I've hung my signed aatt poster from their first acoustic gig on a Parisian rooftop, happy days!

2016 has begun pretty well for me. I was finally sent on Hounslow's 'Weigh 2 Lose' programme on the 4th Jan. Each week me and approximately fifteen others (only one other male) are given an hour's information on diet followed by an exercise class. Despite my coordination problems the latter is ok. I've managed to lose over one and a half stones so far although this week I seem to be stuck. The course is half way through and I feel confident that over a twelve week period I will get into much better eating habits. It's all about portion size, it's ridiculous how little we actually need to function. I still struggle in the evenings, dinner has been hard to reduce and not help myself to more delicious fare that I've spent some time putting together. Reducing alcohol has undoubtedly helped although I do miss the sensation of losing my mind.

The other side of the equation is exercise and being so incredibly huge has rather knocked my confidence about going swimming. Having lost most of my inhibitions with the gaining of age that wandering around in public area with my gut hanging out has remained a blocker. Another two stones lost and I'll be back in the water methinks. Another couple after that and badminton might become possible again. By that time Basti may be too good for me, tell will tell. In the meantime my fitbit keeps tabs on my steps and the target of 10,000 steps a day is starting to be exceeded with more regularity, I am consciously choosing to walk places I would never have done until recently.

The One Plus One

It's been fun and tough, the MFA in Creative Writing. Studying again after all the years in-between took some getting back into, but at least the topic held a fascination for me, and the challenge of writing a novel was enough in itself.

 It's quite a world the creative writing world. Fitting together poetry and poets, novelists and life writers, bloggers and twitterers, never mind the strains of scriptwriting for theatre, radio, tv or film, or travel writing, children's writing, other genres, writing for work; what a mess and what an industry with the usual politics, the enviable enthusiasms and the unnecessary protectors of the art.

Strangely, one thing I've missed most is reading. Specifically, reading novels that I've been wanting to read, for a couple of years now. I thought I might 'discover' some new authors during the course and although I have really enjoyed a few - Jonathan Barnes, Kevin McNeil, Karen Perry, James Miller - there haven't been as many as I'd hoped to find. On the poetry front I've fared much better, quite a plethora in fact; Wendy Cope, Matthew Welton, Michael Surnowski, John Clare, John Redmond, Geoff Peterson, Lucy Furlong, Dave Russomano, Christina Stylianou amongst several more.

In the last week I've taken time to start reading again. I kicked off with the excellent thriller 'The Boy That Never Was' by Karen Perry - great title by the way - followed by 'The One Plus One' by Jojo Moyes. I first delved in to her output with 'The Last Letter of Your Lover', a gorgeous romance / lost love story. Following that I zoomed through the brilliant 'Silver Bay', 'The Peacock Emporium', 'Foreign Fruit' and picked up her last three releases as they became available.

'The One Plus One' is a story about two families of disconnected people with lives falling apart. It's fascinating how they reconcile some of their problems and attempt to make things work and how their relationships intertwine and will it all work out in the end? I love the characters, they are brilliantly constructed and believable. The differing points of view are written wonderfully, I went through each one with empathy, sympathy and hopes and frustrations.

At about 400 pages in I thought the book was reaching a natural conclusion and I wondered what could take me through 115 pages I had left. So often I finish a novel and wish I could have been immersed further inside the futures of the characters I'd lived with. This novel took me there. I'm so pleased that Jojo Moyes's deserved recent success hasn't affected her writing. Can't wait for her next one...

Spotify, Spearmint and the Stones

So, I've recently been increasing my usage of Spotify. In the past it was somewhere I might pop in to listen to some more tracks by an artist a friend had mentioned or recommended. Being decisive in these things usually four or five tracks would be enough for me to add an album to the wish list, buy it immediately, or scrub the name from the depths of my amnesia.

But since the Mac investment the sound quality on my laptop is very good, not up to the quality of my hifi, but it's clear, works well for me. Not sure when this happened, but Spotify claim they now pay the artist for every track played. I'd hate to estimate the infinitesimal amount of this but, ok, fair play. For most of the day I pick one of my beloved faves - Spearmint, And Also The Trees, Belasco, the passage, the Beloved - and turn the volume down and just let it cycle through their Spotify selection. When I listen to them I'll listen 'properly'.

I have the download version of Spearmint's new album, 'News From Nowhere'. You'd be shocked if I was loving it, every single second, every line, note, all that stuff. And I do. But I'm looking forward to the CD arriving, I have a feeling it will sound better through the hi-fi. As often as I've doubted my ears they do appreciate my beautiful set up. Or maybe iTunes I'm listening to the download on isn't quite up to it.

Recommendation One. Get yourself a copy of this album.

Once in a blue moon a new band comes along and falling in love with them is the most wonderful thing. To say that this is rare would be an understatement, but it happens. Fortune favoured a strange link recently and drove me in the direction of the Stones, Angus and Julia. One of my favourite authors of the last decade is Jojo Moyes. She's built a reputation based on 'Me Before You' and rightly so. I was lucky enough to be attracted by the title of her 'The Last Letter From Your Lover' and delved into her six or so previous novels thoroughy enjoying all of them. Anyway, she tweeted that someone, a German lady, had put together at 8tracks.

On that compilation are the wonderful Daughter, xx, Birdy, and the Stones, Angus & Julia. I have to say I'm very disappointed that no-one pointed them out to me earlier, they've sold out their impending shows in London and I would have loved to have seen them, maybe next time... Or did someone point them out and me, in my stubbornness towards trying new music, didn't bother. Oh, what an idiot!

Anyway, I've ordered what I can, bizarrely an album less than eight years old seems impossible to buy on cd for less than £30. Don't get that, literally too. But my Spotify habit in the last few weeks has been to open them up and listen over and over. Bliss, complete, utter unrefined joy. As someone once wrote, 'it's the music that I love'.