Slept heavily with strange dreams; some sort of university complex as ever, full of staircases and corridors, lacking any sort of predictable structure, which I walk nervously through with a constant feeling I’m not supposed to be there – this is all a bit obvious, isn’t it? This is combined with a powerful feeling of discomfort in one eye and lengthy debates about whether a particular Journal of Roman Studies submission meets the journal’s standard of significance – I have started receiving submissions, in my new role as Editor. but from what I can recall of the paper’s argument when I wake up this one was completely imaginary. Semi-woken at one point by Hector yelling, as he tends to do in the small hours when he feels hungry or lonely, but drifted off again, and the cats for once were not demanding breakfast at half five.

It’s not a work day for A – still can’t make much sense of her schedule in the new job – so no alarm set. Eventually surfaced from more odd dreams at about half seven, needing the bathroom, so then fed cats, opened the cat flap for them, did dishes from last night and made tea. Bad hayfever this morning which probably explains eye discomfort (which turns out not to have been solely a dream thing). Catch up on newspapers in bed, then feel that I need to get on with things so get up. Breakfast is the now-usual austere porridge (no sugar or condensed milk, just dried fruit and a touch of salt and chilli) and astringent drink of lemon juice, cider vinegar and water; ah, the joys of raised cholesterol and the project to avoid going on statins. Especially annoying as I’d gone to the doctor in the first place about the chronic fatigue and brain fog, which seems to have been completely forgotten as soon as she found something less nebulous even of unrelated to focus on. Still, it’s remarkable how quickly that drink has become normal, rather than an eye-watering slap in the face. Go out to check the garden – especially the potatoes (to make sure the badgers haven’t started their usual vandalism) and the newly planted lettuce.

A morning of work on copy-editing JRS reviews and processing new submissions – this was planned, rather than being a reaction to the dream – plus sorting out some minor admin in relation to a postgrad. A. has gone out to treat a patient. Had my espresso at eleven on the bench by the wildlife pond, listening to birdsong with a new app called Merlin; this is incredibly addictive, as I have always been terrible at recognising birdsong apart from really obvious ones like blackbirds, and it’s fun to get a sense of how many different species are around locally that we rarely see. However, once you hear a chiffchaff it’s impossible to unhear the bloody thing.

More journal admin, then A. returns to give me an acupuncture treatment, along with a lecture on how I’ve lost all my boundaries which is why my brain doesn’t work properly. I don’t think this is quite right – I feel I’m struggling with boundaries because my brain isn’t working properly – but one doesn’t argue with the person poking you with needles, even if they are very fine needles.

Light lunch, then get changed in order to take all the bags of green waste from the weekend’s gardening down to recycling centre. Then onwards to fill up at the petrol station and get the car cleaned as I’d promised A. This is a very long and tedious experience, as I seem to have turned up just at the moment when a couple of people go on a break and the driver of the soft-top Mercedes in front wants to have *everything* done and apparently isn’t satisfied with the results. Pass the time with a very silly argument on Ex-Twitter, where someone has declared that Thucydides was Thracian on his father’s side – not because his father’s mother was Thracian but because his father was; arguments about it being unlikely that he’d then have had Athenian citizenship are brushed aside with airy references to DNA evidence showing lots of Thracian men entering the Greek gene pool at this time, which strikes me as both dubious but, more importantly, beside the point. But it’s certainly interesting to encounter someone pushing this line.

Back home at last for a cup of tea in the garden – which offers an excellent view of Olga worming her way inside the anti-insect netting over the brassica bed, daintily avoiding the newly-planted calabrese in order to settle down at the other end. Weird cat. An hour and a half working slowly and painfully on revisions to a chapter, then cooking Chinese chicken soup. I’m trying for the first time to clarify the stock properly with egg white; moderate success, as this certainly removed a load of gunk, but the resulting soup is still not crystal clear. Flavour a bit bland but feels very healthy; as it’s still a lovely day we eat outside listening to birdsong (the pair of very cross long-tailed tits are back, presumably because they’re nesting in the vicinity). Clouds have begun to gather in a threatening manner so hastily mowed the last bits of lawn, then washed up the dishes.

Upstairs to try to work on some music; I had a message earlier that my jazz composition class might be moved to tomorrow- as the tutor has a gig on the usual Thursday, so this may be my only time to get any homework done as I spent the weekend in the garden and was shattered as a result. Not a success; the exercise was to write a bebop-style melody, and I really struggled to come up with anything that didn’t sound like a scales exercise (which, it must be said, is true of a fair number of classic bebop tunes). Either I need more time to work out something more interesting, or I just skip homework this week and hope that we hastily move on to post-bop. Give up after an hour and go downstairs to listen quietly to some music before bed. Plus continuing argument over whether I am underestimating the presence of Thracians in Attica, especially under Peisistratus, and whether we can expect that a Thracian father is something that Thucydides would surek6 have mentioned when explaining his credentials for being sent to the northern Aegean…

Sphinx

Message History

Delivery option(s)