As I’m so ambulatory between computers at the moment I’m using Google Docs to do all my typing, and I’m doing quite a lot of typing, often late at night. I just came across something that my revision history tells me that I wrote at about one o’clock this morning, I don’t remember typing it at all.

The tears were followed by beaming smiles all around and a smile from the woman that could have cut a liquorice in two. She stuttered a quick response and backed down – raising her wig in defiance of the stiff breeze summoned up by a quartet of american army helicopters which hovered nearby ready to dispatch untold death on the supposed militants below, actually a small band of school children who’d got their hands on some pavement chalk and were ruthlessly defacing a series of small terracotta pots placed on the terrace by a Miss Ealing Summers, as part of her attempt to grow her own herbs for use in the kitchen. Miss Ealing Summers has never taken a course in cookery, nevertheless, she fancies herself quite the mini-masterchef and often imagines inviting round scores of non-existent friends to her place for a nice soiree, a dinner party. Her flatmate, frankly, things her cooking skills overrated and has attempted on numerous occasions to ban her from the kitchen, to little effect, because Miss Ealing Summers cannot imagine the possibility that she might not be a culinary ace whizkid.

I feel that it might be a good time for a holiday, which is a good thing, because I am having one.

Here are a few more things that you should now about my flat:

• We just bought new wine glasses – they are enormous and the wine tastes better.
• At least once a week one of us falls asleep on the sofa. Last week I did it twice, right now Kris is sleeping just to my right.
• We also just got library membership – which means we have access to a lot more films (which, excitingly, are free to rent from the library in Spain… how come nobody told me this before!?). Tonight we watched Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee. I don’t understand why Spike Lee never managed to make a better film. We have five more films in the pile waiting to be watched. (We also watched Sweet Sixteen (by Ken Loach) this evening).
• The cat is in heat again – something needs to be done about this.
• We experimented with a political change in coffee consumption – comunist coffee – unfortunately it tasted like wee…. burnt wee. Back to fascism.
• Mortadela Siciliana does not exist.
• Sometimes, it is definitely certain, we let the flat get a little bit too dirty.
• All the blankets in the flat were handmade by Kris’s mum. They are awesome.
• Kris’s mum also made us croquetas… unfortunately they went bad before we got to eat them.
• At least 66.67 percent of us are stupid, deaf, or just have altzheimers.

my flatmate and I took fotos of each other:

In relation to the aforementioned secret mystery project 25, here are two of the reference images I’ve used to draw from:

I think I mentioned some time ago a desire not to have anything more to do with singstar style games, turns out that resolution came unstuck last night. We had a dinner and singstar-athon, which was unfortunately cut short by the arrival of the police… oh, young people today, they ain’t what they used to be. The food was awesome (I didn’t have a hand in it) and my made some of my standard postres – fruit scones and caramel shortcake, which went down well. I also whipped up another batch of jarabe de goma (a kind of syrup) so that we could make pisco sours (typical peruvian cocktail).
I’m still under no kind of illusion that I can sing, but I did manage to win one round in Spanish, which was a feat to be particularly proud of I’d say.

I am writing this post with my laptop going through the TV. This
basically means that everything is impossible. It’s impossible to read
this text, it’s impossible to see colours, because for some reason it’s
coming out in black and white. Also, the resolution is really low. Do you
kids remember how once we all had minuscule resolutions? I think
everybody, especially software designers, have forgotten that, which
explains all these weird line breaks – it’s the only way I can actually keep
my text on the screen, I’m pretty sure no one even considers that
800 * 600 exists any more, outside of mobile devices I guess.

I wrote a little thing yesterday:

SO IF YOU CALLED MY YOUR
BUTTERFLY FOOL AND CRASHED
THE PRESIDENT’S PLANE INTO THE
ROOF OF YOUR OLD SCHOOL
I’D BUY YOU ROSES AND
A PACK OF CIGARETTES AND
TAKE YOU OUT FOR A
NIGHT OF FINE DINING, AT
LEAST A NIGHT OF THE FINEST
DINING THESE PARTS CAN
OFFER. YOU DON’T LIKE
THE SAME MUSIC AS ME
AND YOU CAN’T BREATHE
UNDERWATER NEITHER, AND
SOMETIMES YOU SCREAM PRETTY
LOUD AT THE TELLY, BUT
THAT’S ALL RIGHT BY ME. I’LL
TURN THE TELLY OFF AND
GET INTO NEW KIDS ON THE
BLOCK AND WE’LL TAKE HOLIDAYS
IN THE DESERT, OR AT LEAST
I’LL RENT FOR YOU A BOAT
WHILE I EXPLORE THE DEPTHS.

Another scan from yesterday:

Yes, I did blur the story out.

Ok, so that lasted a long time didn’t it – that post every other day thing. Well, it wasn’t due to a lack of resolve on my part but instead to us changing broadband providers who, characteristically, decided that they didn’t actually want to provide us with anything – neither internet, nor technical support, nor, much of the time, even an ear to rant out. Anyway, that, hopefully, is all done now. I’ve honed my tech support spanish skills, learnt how to mangle the spanish world for “flashing”, and spent enough time inside the configuration pages for our router to last a lifetime. Anyway, to add insult to industry (no, wait, that’s not right), my external monitor that I’ve been feeding my beat up laptop through these past goodness knows how many months decided to give up the ghost yesterday and I am now without a computer, at least until I can get back to the UK and cajole people into helping me to fix it. Anyhow, I’m borrowing my flatmate’s and with any luck I might be able to revive this blogging thing, once again.

Yesterday I started a new pocket notebook. I (almost) always carry a notebook around with me to, you know, make notes and stuff in. I love starting  a new one because I get a sudden rush of creative energy and get to write and doodle lots of new things. So I’ve writing a few bits for untitled mystery project 17, I drew a portrait of our pet cat, I drew some swirls, wrote a short story and did some illustrations for secret mystery project 25.  I also drew a bird on one page, and an organic doodle on another, along with the words “The bare tree sang to itself / whining in the moonlight / I spoke to you / and you did not /hear.” On another page I wrote the words, “Because I love you / And / Because / The world still turns without you.” I’m not sure where we’re going with all this.

There isn’t much else to report in the intervening time, I’m so poor that I’m living an essentially hermit-like existence, surviving on the scraps that my flatmates throw under the table. I also made another strawberry cheesecake, and a chocolate cookie recipe entirely of my own devising. Anything else? No, not that comes to mind right now. Ok, ciao for now fishsticks.

Edited to add a picture, because I found a scanner: