Kicking Our Way Through a Golden Gown

As I start to write this it is 6:30 am. I looking out on a morning that certainly looks very autumnal, and conducting an experiment into how much coffee it is going to take to wake me up. The "one-cup hypothesis" has failed but I have high hopes on the two.

This has been the first normal - five day working week for a while with a couple of late work ones thrown in. Plus a couple of late non-work ones. OK, it would be easier to say I haven't got to bed at a sensible hour since Sunday.

I've changed my morning routine a little. As anyone who goes anywhere in the morning will be aware, kids are back to school. And most of them seem to be getting my train. I've tended to get the same train for about the last 3 and a half years. At the beginning there were maybe four or five kids getting the train to the private schools out South of Croydon. Now it is maybe 30 from Balham, with another 30 or so already on the train from the stops before.

This shows something about the area - it's one that is impossible for normal people to buy a house in (if you can afford £18k per year out of taxed income for each of your kids to go to school - which is a salary cost of nearly £70k just on education if you are going to send both Oliver and Sophia, then you are not "normal people"). But this isn't (today) a moan about the increased bankerisation of Balham. It's simply a comment that I've changed to a slower train where I have my choice of seats, and a pleasant-enough ten minute to the office at the end of it.

And it looks like another busy week ahead. I'm doing the Verdi Requiem with Crouch End Festival Chorus and the gig is Saturday 13th. So a rehearsal for that first thing tomorrow. Ukulele to restore the balance Sunday, and then I am off to Guernsey (working) for a couple of days next week, back to host a work drinks party - deep joy - Thursday and then two days of Verdi before the gig. So I think tonight and Monday is it in terms of free time for a while. And obviously I need to go to the gym on those to counter the excesses of all the other things. It's good to be busy but right now (at 6:47am) with coffee number 2 failing to make much of an inroad yet) I'm thinking maybe not this busy.

It has all felt rather easy in the nice summer weather. Easy to get out and about, just looking out the window makes you smile. I normally really like autumn, but I do wonder how that is going to be, when it gets cold and dark by the time I am home from work. Maybe I'm a little anxious about that right now.
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Right - two hours on, in the office and just posting this I saw the following story.

And in sad closing news, the BBC reported that the space sex geckos have died. I'm sure all our hearts go out to the plucky little fellows. I hope that, following their inevitable dissection and prodding about, that they will be given the send-off so deserved by such pioneers.

Here's a tune for Anthony

I'm back. And with an unusually cryptic title. Did you miss me? Be honest. Oh, well, never mind.

But the blogging hiatus is officially over. And there is so much I want to talk to you about. Since the last blog I've been to some great gigs, from Chas n Dave to the Crouch End Festival Chorus. Plus I saw Rob Newman (Newman & Baddiel) last weekend - wonderful gig.

I've sung at the Albert Hall. I'm preparing to sing in a Prom (not plugging tickets because it's sold out, but Radio 3 Monday 18th August if you are interested). Oh, and I did a karaoke last week.

The "not eating meat" thing is turning out to be quite easy, with the exception of lunches - dear God, I never want to see a cheese sandwich again. Other stuff can take longer, though actually just requires a bit more consideration in advance. I feel hugely better for it. And I am persevering with going to the gym. Probably as a result of those two things, I've lost a bit of weight, which makes me feel better, and makes the gym easier - so a virtuous cycle is ensuing.

And as I write this, Michael Gove is off to be chief whip, which makes me feel wonderful. And someone I used to sit next to in lectures at university has joined the government, which makes me feel old.

I may delve a bit more into any and all of those  in the coming weeks, because normal service will now be resumed.

But, all this is that nervous chatter you have at the start of an appraisal or something isn't it? I'm skirting round the substantive and letting you gorge yourselves on small talk. So?

So, I've had a bit of a change in my home circumstances, necessitating a change of address etc. Unlike famous people, I'm not going to write volumes about it, or invent new phrases to explain things. Because that's, frankly, wrong. My blog has stuff in it about me*, which no-one else can legitimately take offence at, and about public figures, who are fair targets for what they get. I don't talk about real people.

So, I am fine. I have had the support of, help from, some very good friends over the last six weeks, and am now readjusting to some different, and somewhat straitened circumstances. I am still very definitely in Balham. I don't think that there was every an alternative. In fact, I live here. And it is very nice.

That's it. No biggie. Nobody died. It's just that in all this, there wasn't time, Dear Reader, for you. Don't worry, I'll make it up to you...


* and the 'me' of my blog is, you realise, only a view of me. Everything you get is true, but you don't get everything.