Excellent jazz last night again at LPAC’s Commuter Jazz slot with the LPAC All Stars… I’m so buoyed up by my weekly jazz fix, I even have enough energy to turn my attention to Christmas. As usual I’m trying to avoid the commercial razzmatazz, but it did occur to me that maybe a Virtual Stocking would be a good idea…Then I could fill it with all sorts of gifts that actually only exist virtually…like my kindle e-book The Kiss… but therein lies another mystery – can I actually buy it from myself?  Think I need another jazz fix.

Tonight I was told by some very young (and possibly rather drunk) art students to “Stay with it, sister!” So I am just wondering how…Perhaps a total makeover would do the job, or to wear the jeans I keep for the garden around town more, or even to put on some of my partner’s jeans, so that they expose the cleavage of my rear end. Or orange hair? Or piercings? The choices roll out before me…tattoos, cheroots, goth eyes….though when I come to think of it, maybe I’ll stick to writing questioning fiction…I think it might suit me better….

Just been to see the film Pierrepoint about one of the last hangmen in Britain (filmed, apparently, partially in the jail at Lincoln Castle), a strong argument, in my view, against capital punishment. When I emerged from the hall, a rather hoity-toity woman asked me if I had enjoyed the showing. I replied that I hadn’t enjoyed it exactly, but thought it interesting as a film, and no, I don’t agree with hanging.

“What d’you do with them,” she asked, “if you don’t hang ’em? Shoot them like the Russians?”

Some people just don’t get it, do they?

As any fiction writer will tell you, procrastination is a great thing. Anything to avoid sitting down and really having to Think. This morning’s great excuse is Martha. She’s a spider who is sitting in the bath.

Had it not been for watching the last five minutes of Autumnwatch last night she may well not have been a reason to procrastinate at all. After all, I didn’t want to run a bath. And I’m not one of these people who can’t bear to be in the same room as one of the hairy beasts. I actually quite like spiders. Apart, that is, from a certain anonymous specimen in Corsica that bit me zealously and wholeheartedly when I picked it up by mistake (it was hidden in a duster).  And Autumnwatch reminded me that spiders like to use flannels to climb out of baths and sinks.

I watch Martha do a couple of circuits of the bottom of the bath reminiscent of Hoy at the Olympic velodrome and begin to feel sorry for her. The flannels on the edge of the bath are way out of reach. So I take a hand towel and drape it over, ensuring that one end of it is well into the bottom. Martha is not impressed and does a further half circuit away to the other side. However, when I have finished cleaning my teeth, I look down and see no sign of her. Hooray, I think, she has escaped. I pick up the towel to replace it on the rail to see that Martha has not escaped at all but is hiding beneath it, and we are now back to square one. I position the towel again, and go to switch on the laptop.

When I return I gingerly pick up the towel, examine both sides, the inside of the bath, the bathroom floor, but no sign of Martha. I give the towel an extra little shake. No. She’s gone. Thank goodness. Now I can get on with my writing…perhaps I should just check that she hasn’t climbed into my underwear drawer…

Who’d have thought it? No sooner than I have finished writing my Fibonacci Sequence about sunflowers and dark and shade (amongst other things, light and life, home and journeys etc etc) as this morning’s Today Programme on Radio Four features an all-summer-long experiment conducted by Manchester University, along with some residents of the city, checking out if the growth of sunflowers actually does conform to the mathematical sequence known as the Fibonacci Sequence. Apparently they do, BUT there are rogues. Wonder if I am one of them?

Cracking evening on Friday at LPAC Lincoln’s commuter jazz (every Friday 5-7pm). Real treat to see Me and Mr Jones with vocalist Rachel Foster. Soaring jazz voice, excellent arrangement by Paul Deats (on keyboard) and totally professional! Wow, what a treat!

In contrast, Lincoln’s famous sausage festival on Saturday. All that meat for the carnivores amongst you! Can still get an organic veggie box though, or simply a free trip round the castle or the cathedral…

Makes Lincoln an extremely civilized place to be for a weekend! And no, I’m not receiving commission from the tourist board…

Great night at Lincoln’s Drill Hall watching Wyllie Longmore in conversation with the nineteenth century actor Ira Aldridge. Mesmerising performance, with a bonus of a few drops of song into our thirsty ears…enough to oil the old cogs, anyway, and revisit race issues in British society. Interesting take on it. Pity about the disturbance from the show in the main auditorium…

I enjoyed reading as part of the Filter Festival, Nunsthorpe, last night and gave my most recent poem sequence an airing, as well as Flightpath whose sunny inspirations contrasted with a cool October night! Some good poets there, including the excellent David Cooke who was launching his latest book. Great to see cultural activity burgeoning in what the media, allegedly, seem to be writing off as a “bad” area.

Other than that, my thought processes seem to have turned into a soup of how our soaps and shampoos are creating maritime soup – so lots of soup and soap – how the English gave small-pox infested blankets to the North-American Indians, creating an epidemic and how art can help to challenge it all….but meantime, what do I wash myself with?

Another Monday morning…and oh yes, I admit I haven’t exactly kept to my October resolution (or is that revolution?) to keep my blog… too busy preparing for my reading on Thursday at the Filter Festival Open Mic 3 at Nunsthorpe Library…

www.theculturehouse.co.uk/literature-festival/open-mic-3

Yey!

Cleethorpes, and what better place to spend the day – it’s great weather, the sky is blue, it’s mild, and the birds are feeding happily on the sand flats of the estuary. On the Prom poets are busy chalking up their scribblings, and guess what? People are enjoying reading them!

Thirsty work all this chalking, so it’s off to the Kiosk cafe for a coffee and to listen to more poets strutting their stuff!

Then a long, long walk along the beach (is that too many “longs”?) before fish ‘n chips in Steel’s restaurant. Nowt better!

Wash down the whole day with a reading from the excellent George Szirtzes and other accomplished poets, thanks to the Filter Festival. What more can a gal want?