Summer's End
29 August

Well, I've already reported on some of the gathering harbingers of summer's end. You know, start of the football season, dark by 9.00pm, etc. Well, it's late summer bank holiday now, the last cricket Test Match of the season has begun, I've received my first set of opera tickets for the 1998/99 season. Hey, ho. Won't be long til autumn's mists and mellow fruitfulnesses are upon us.

Don't know what we're going to do over the weekend since Lowestoft Colin did not take the hint about hosting a barbecue. I say we because Ross is still with me. He's seeing some people at his college on Tuesday so it made more sense for him to stay down here. And he'll be able to house sit for me whilst I am in Belfast. You'll be pleased to hear that he's found himself another new flat - near Poplar Tube station - and this time he's placed a deposit on the place so he's not going to be gazumped. And he'll move in there in about a fortnight's time.

I shall be quite glad when he goes. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing antipathetic. We're getting on fine, deeply loving and continuing to put pennies back in that bottle. It's just that I want my space back. And I don't want his mess around the place. And we're getting under each other's feet a bit. And Ross broke the bed this morning.

Now, I know what you're thinking. And I must confess to having deliberately sowed the seeds of speculation in your imagination. However, it happened prior to rather than during and, in any case, the screws have been coming loose for a while. Mind you, I was livid nevertheless. But I handled my anger pretty well by acknowledging it without letting it overwhelm me. And Ross handled it pretty well too once I also reminded him that I still loved him. He didn't disappear off into his sad and private place where no feelings can touch him.

So, we combined a trip to Homebase with a trip to Tesco's and stocked up with a few of life's basic necessities. Then we re-assembled the bed. Lots of screwing. Yes, yes, yes. And then we re-assembled the bed. And believe it or not it's true. Ross took his punishment like a man. Came twice. Horny little devil.

This evening, it's steak, potatoes and beans and then the new X-Files film. It's Ross's definite choice. I don't know. I haven't seen much around this summer that I have really wanted to see. The Avengers has turned out to be a real turkey. The critics say that it should have been distributed by Bernard Matthews.

Elsewhere, I had a good session of healing with Margaret on Friday night. She thinks that I am making good progress. She noted that I am more at home with my body and at home with myself in general. The healing seemed to go very deep. I continue to release goodness only knows how much bad energy from around the area of my abdomen. And goodness only knows how old and established those energies are.

This time, the release came in the form of a visualisation which was unusual for me (and therefore powerful) because I don't easily relate to the visual world. In this manifestation, a great scaly grasshopper-cum-cockroach, dark bottle green to near black in colour, emerged from my stomach and crawled over my chest towards my face. I (internally) shouted at it to go away and that I didn't mind if it didn't love me because I didn't love it and my voice in my head was that of a child. And the insect flew off over my head and away.

Margaret too had an interesting time of it. She heard all sorts of prayers and affirmations for me - to the extent that she was moved to stroke my third eye nine times instead of her usual three. And she also had a visualisation. She described it as being a Buddha child lying face down (in the same position as I was in) being swept from between the legs and up over the body by the red fires of creativity. She assured me that there was no distress involved although she confessed that she had absolutely no idea what it was about. She suggested that Anita, my masseuse, may have insights so I must remember to ask her when I see her next.

There has been very little else to report this week. Work passed tolerably well. I did the things I needed to do in the four days I was back to keep everything on track. We had a break in at work and had some computers stolen. One of my close colleagues has been offered a job elsewhere and will go like a shot to Brighton. Hmmm. Visits. Hmmm.

I found a copy of Thomas Hampson's Walt Whitman recital in EMI at £3 less than the regular price (I'm listening to it now as I type up and record the past week or more and it brings back memories of Edinburgh). I also found the CD Dance of the Angel - guitar music played by Slava Grigoryan - in a sale at Music Discount Centre. So, I was well pleased that I didn't buy either of them in Edinburgh. The photos of Slava on the Sony Classical web site don't do him justice, by the way. Ross and I both agree that he's well into the Phwarr category and feel that it may well be incumbent on us to go to a concert given by the London Philharmonic in March of next year when this young man is playing Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez.

They've started issuing Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy on Penguin talking books which should keep me satisfied with bed time listening. And that's been about it, I think. Apart from the fact that I encountered my first piece of Net porn about Michael Owen the other day. It wasn't very well written. I'm sure I could do much better.