10th October 2006

I fear Frank Zappa is beyond my ken. I'm not keen on his music, so far, but it may be that I'm just not in the right mood for it. However I do like his taste in music. Anton Webern has been duly podded in the play list of my day to day.

On the walk to ballet I was listening to Arvo Part. Beautiful Autumnal music. When I walked into the theatre foyer, they had his 'Litany' for sale on the 'crap you don't need' table. So I bought it. It's calming in a wistful way. Not crap I didn't need at all.

This morning was golden lit and the moon was in the sky. I walked 'round to the bread shop. I love doing that. Pastoral and French. I like it best because even if you think you know which loaf you fancy that day, the baker may not have fancied making it.
It's wheat lottery.
I swither on my way round the corner, white or oatmeal and treacle. They have neither. I take granary. It's so strong it could be meat. Best toasted. Spread with red pesto.
I love the bun shape of the bread, so wholesome to hold when I cut the loaf, the hump of it nestling in the cradle of my palm, like sculpture, I can feel where the baker held it last. That last powdery pat of his hand before baking. As I saw the bread knife back and forth, there is the scent of pride taken in this work as the crust is broken.

Variety.
The spice of life.

Today, as it's so beautiful I decide not to go to the gym, but have a long walk in the sunshine instead. Looking in the houses during the day, cats and dogs wait at windows, full of longing for the people they own to come home.
An enormous pair of red-laced running shoes behind a plant pot outside number 68. Is this wolf runner's flat? I've not seen him for a few weeks.
I go into Somerfields for mushrooms and something leafy and green. What the hell is a tatsoi? Even Somerfield can't resist the urge to bamboozle it seems.

The lovely thing about buying fresh every couple of days is I buy what I have a notion for, often not knowing I have a notion for it until I get there. It's all very good medicine, in an Oriental way.
One orange no longer seems a ridiculous purchase in the shrinking expansion. Why buy six and watch five rot to blue mould when I only feel like eating one, today, now, in this golden light? Saving the planet in the buying of an orange.

The pine trees I pass slow me down to a slow motion glide. The scent of them in the heat of the sun. The green light of the harpsichord of them, luminous. Beauty. And passing the playing fields I stop to watch a seagull soaring and swooping on the air currents. 'Spiegel im Spiegel' playing. It means 'mirror in the mirror', and the bird swoops in tune.
Mirror in the mirror.
Who is swooping and who is landscape here?