A DAY IN THE LIFE

Do you have typical days, when the pattern of the previous day is repeated almost identically, like wallpaper ? Can you remember all details of the pattern? Here's one of mine.


Got up about 10 am when the phone rang. I usually set the alarm clock for an optimistic 7:30 but since I rarely get to bed before 3 or 4 am, when it rings I switch it off, reasoning that I deserve another couple of hours. Mornings are something I would like to be better acquainted with and enjoy the benefits of more often. My mornings are blurry, foggy, indecisive. Decisions like: should I turn on the computer or have breakfast loom unresolved. Breakfast won today so I shuffled to the kitchen wearing pyjamas and red bathrobe - this is a very old mumsy robe which I must get rid of. Something jazzier and more morning-friendly is required, as long as it doesn't have a belt. I hate belted robes so don't get me one if you're thinking of it. 

Breakfast is two wholewheat mini-pitta (from Marks & Spencer) toasted in the toaster then spread with unsalted butter and a couple of slices of Emmental. An apple, a clementine, a cup of maté, no sugar or honey. While consuming this petit déjeuner I read yesterday's newspaper, the Independent. Because my morning brain is foggy, I read everything, even if I'm not interested. I have been known to read the advertisements for cars, which I have no interest in whatsoever. Droning in my blurry consciousness is a robot voice which sounds, I'm afraid, like Stephen Hawking, insisting that I should stop this robotic behaviour and Get On With The Day. 

Eventually I obey and shuffle to the bathroom. No, first I turn on the computer to check email and to find out if there are any comments here on the blog. Well, overnight somebody in another time zone might have commented, innit? Bugger, no new comments. Quick peek at my stats: not much traffic there either. Shit. But wait: the stats say I've had 699 visitors so far this month - 699 and October has just begun! That's more people than I've met in my entire life, probably. Okay maybe it's not 699 visitors but 699 visits. Even if it's only 300 people that's still more real people than I actually know. So what if they don't comment? They have visited this space and I should be gleeful. I am gleeful. I make a couple of administrative phone calls.Then I put some laundry in the washing machine. Then I go in the bathroom. 

Bathroom business takes quite a while. I need to stand in the shower for at least ten minutes even though that's terribly wasteful, ecologically speaking, because only hot water running down the back of my neck dispels the brain fog. I dress in my painting clothes, old striped purple top and blue no-Yoga Yoga trousers and then it's face-the-face time: in magnifying mirror on bedroom window-sill I examine my morning mug and adjust whatever can be adjusted, which is not much. A bit of concealer under the eyes, some plucking of stray hairs, lipstick. Now I'm ready for the day. It's about 2 pm.

I go upstairs to my studio and confront The Painting (DNA/Prism/Frames of Reference). I stand back and examine what still needs to be done. While I'm working I notice how much painting ressembles carpentry or construction in general. All about fitting this into that, balancing, assessing, eliminating, concealing, revealing. It's not glamorous or inspirational, it's just work - if some mystery or chemistry subsequently occurs between viewer and finished canvas, that's a bonus. I work until about 5 pm then go downstairs and make coffee, eat a couple of biscuits and a clementine. Quick look at email then back upstairs. More work on the painting until daylight starts to fade. Very annoyed that the days are getting shorter. Have to stop, the colours are wrong under electric light. The painting still needs more work, I'll do it tomorrow. It's about 7 pm.

I start preparing dinner, my only real meal of the day. I've got some organic beef and a lot of vegetables. I rarely eat beef but when I do, I like to make a hearty dish and tonight a casserole suits the approach of winter. I'm a good cook, if I say so myself, unschooled but creative within a limited range. Occasionally I'll follow a recipe but mostly I improvise, throwing together flavours I like. Turn the oven on to 200C and while it heats up, sauté the beef chunks in a bit of olive oil with a chopped red onion, garlic, chopped ginger, a red pepper. Add spices: cumin, coriander, thyme, black pepper, salt. A dash of red wine and stir on high heat until the meat is well-browned. The oven is ready so transfer the contents of the pan into a deep earthenware pot, add more red wine then pile in the rest of the chopped vegetables: carrots, new potatoes, parsnips, courgette, baby corn. Put the lid on the pot and bung the thing in the oven. It will take an hour and a half/two hours. Meanwhile I nibble a few black olives and drink cold coffee in a tall glass with ice cubes and a dash of port, the real Portuguese Port from Porto, a recent gift. I don't know if my mixture is a proper drink but it tastes good. 

Back to the computer to look at email again, write a few replies, browse some blogs, then begin writing this blog post. Around 9:30 pm the delicious smell says my dinner is ready. I add some quickly boiled fresh peas to the mix and ladle out a very generous helping of my casserole. It is exquisite, of course. Half a glass of red wine remains in the bottle so I drink it. A clementine is my dessert. End of food for today. Washing up can wait until morning. 

I come back to the Mac and move the August and September blog posts to my archive. It is now five past 1 am on October 13 and I think I will go to bed unless I decide to add a picture to this post and then maybe browse some blogs. 

This was my typical day that was. How typical was yours? 

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HEADLESS BISHOPS AT BREAKFAST

The tables and chairs in the breakfast room at my hotel are wearing skirts, long golden yellow brocaded skirts. It looks like a gathering of headless bishops, an ecclesiastical convention imagined by the Surrealists. Surveying the scene from above is the always open eye of a television, pouring out old Disney cartoons dubbed in French, which makes the quacking and barking and squealing even more hysterical than in the native version. Plastic flowers and candles adorn the skirted tables. Breakfast is good: crusty baguette, croissant, butter, jam, orange juice, coffee.

Taking a shower is a daunting tour de force: if you make the fatal mistake of turning the hot tap on first, boiling water sprays you and the room from cracks in the long black rubber hose attached to the bath. Today the cold water tap fell off. There are no hooks to hang anything. Maybe the French have not yet discovered hooks. But I saw some of those suction ones in the Super U yesterday and if I were staying longer I'd buy a sackful and stick them everywhere.

I love this hotel. The friendly Moroccans who appear to be running it are philosophical about Things That Don't Work As They Should (c'est la vie) and will fix them almost as soon as possible.

My sister is definitely better. Yesterday we went for a walk in the streets around the clinic and today we'll do a longer walk. Mood has improved along with la santé. Please may it continue to be so.