My Diary: Stood In A Hole Thinking Of Caeneus

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Still, under the sky, under the clouds and under the weather. I noticed a suit of armour in the corner of the spacious hall had a thermometer sticking out of its visor so I guess I am not the only one suffering. The morning was sun licked as I held a large mug of tea in my puppy lap. I wasn’t planning to paint so engaged in an earnest conversation with the wallpaper pattern in, at first, the dining room and then my thinking studio (as distinct from my doing studio). A man arrived with a ladder, dressed as I was in a pair of black tights, and joined the bad weather goblins on the roof. I call the smallest one Shower and the largest Storm – there are a number in between and they are all chauffeured everywhere in a Buffalo amphibious vehicle. I eventually looked back on the day like a chief executive examining his corporate tie for porridge stains.

My Diary: Why My Best Friend Rides A Unicorn

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I walked round the medieval courtyard wrapped in bandages, stopping to stare at my shadow which was likewise encumbered. I turned a handle in the wall and the music started to play. When it finally stopped I tried to attract the attention of my neighbours to ask why there was a Jersey cow standing on their roof but they were talking to mermaids – which surprised me as their pond is much smaller than mine. The man with laddered legs didn’t arrive so I packed away my Foreign Legion fort and swept the sand up from my studio floor. In a dream I saw a man all dressed in white; all of which he removed while pacing the landing floor – I am always naked in my own dreams, I am not sure about other people’s. I subsequently went for a walk after offering a handshake to the front door – it knows I haven’t been feeling quite myself recently.

My Diary: Mazeophobia

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I woke up far too early again. A rider on a pale grey steed was standing atop a hill in the small piece of distance I could still perceive. I made a cloak from the bed clothes and rode out to meet him. The commuter train was swallowed by the bridge as I laid a paper trail I would follow later when asleep. The workmen still congregate like pawns cast off a chest board and I gave them a cheery hello as I strode by with hooves for feet and a little horns above each eye. I felt unwell and worked slowly, getting succour from songs sung by shepherds and shepherdesses on a remote hillside I called The Lovers Tryst. The morning I dedicated to yellow, orange and red and the afternoon to various shades of blue and green. I followed the foggy path with infant care as I was afeared of getting lost in an unknown land.

My Diary: Introducing The Grey Knight

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I woke up with the sun, laying on a dream cloud and flicking off bird feathers. Below trees stood like sentries guarding a vacuum. All vacuums in nature are worth guarding I heard myself say. Wondering if all time travellers can fly I landed in my wilderness garden – sadly the wildness of the weather wouldn’t let me work in it today. I toiled inside instead, chained to the humdrum – my feet in the past and my hands in the future (my head, as always, was still in the clouds). The spaceship (like ladies lipstick) landed while I stood in the ancient doorway. As the robotic novelists descended the eye shadow steps I thought back to a spurious Regency ancestry where I was a headstrong Lord watching a young lady sitting in the corner, nervously holding her reticule; a modest pelisse buttoned over her plain muslin gown.

My Diary: I Am A Rock – If Not That Then A Large Pebble

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I am the rock that everyone stands on so as not to get their feet wet. I understand the language of the sea – I thought this while sailing on land. (cue the adagio from the ballet Spartacus by Khachaturian!). I did very little outside today save aimlessly walking round like a lost dart board at the Battle of Agincourt. I sat down with walking legs and worked with kind eyes and demon mouth – this is actually the entrance to another world but one never swallows oneself on principle. The characters in my head and I will later wait for the storm to come and fly a kite at half mast – alas, childhood is a toy I still want to play with. After thinking this I picked up the thread in the labyrinth and preceded to tie a knot in it. Shouting out I am the Jigsaw Man and some of my pieces are missing as I did so; they are probably hidden under the sideboard.

My Diary: On Finding An Enchanted Garden

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I got up early trying to remember the code for the time machine in the Eighteenth Century yard, as it was I got an nineteenth Century space machine to the outskirts of town.  Following a route of ostentation and pretence before reaching bare trees in a naked wood – only my imagination was clothed. My Earth, Air, Fire and Water friend and I found a lake to walk round in a midnight dream and an enchanted garden for the early hours. We ran after pink and red and gold and looked at hints of Summer opulence. I wrote all this on the back of an envelope which I subsequently posted to myself and eagerly anticipate its return. We left the fields of colour in a grey rain and a greyer journey home, with only occasional glimpses of sun like a bare arm emerging from a suit of armour.

My Diary: Finding A Sunrise In A Sunset

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I found the gate in an otherwise endless fence quite by accident; it was while practising walking the length of a piece of music – it was an adagio so I didn’t have to hurry (one of my legs had turned into a block of flats anyway). I pulled a mechanical digger out of my back pocket and began to dig holes in verse. Once the poem was complete I walked through it to the other side of town; where I delivered three envelopes to four people in five houses (six times). Walking back with a teepee as a hat I crossed the road without realising I had done it and found the front door as a gash in the side of Ares. The child in me immediately put his book down and went outside to water plants in the pouring rain. I eventually found time to paint; it had been hiding with my memories of childhood.

My Diary: Into The Countryside Like A Magic Monkey

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The metamorphosis of howling wolves into the image of a comfortable coat was complete before I put it on in readiness for a trip out to the hazel nut wood (just off the walnut tree road – where stage coaches once sped by like frightened mice). I went by the forest of a thousand eyes and over the sleeping hills with a flaming chalice on my shoulder. I worked by a hedge, sipping nectar like a humming bird; one foot was in World War One and the other in World War Two. Speaking in turn to Grass Man, Chimney Man and  Electric Man, the sky a jagged edge that in the end didn’t bleed and the sun a chalice of flames. I wore history like a coat as I came home with donkey ears and diamonds in my hair. Underneath the still waters a monster sleeps; waiting to save the world but not sure if it will be this one or another.

My Diary: Miracle Man Appears Disguised As A Fireplace

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I went up and down the serpent ladder, carrying a message to myself – knowing full well I would never read it. I photographed the unicorn tree in the first handshake of dawn, watching for the march of howling men. I walked past the orange men myself in a werewolf disguise. They were swallowing beds and other items of bedroom furniture. I climbed the hill with fish scales on my back; calling myself a warrior of peace and making floral sculptures out of barbed wire. Once home (which I called the howling fox) I went upstairs to my open mouthed garret to paint like a poet. In the distance I could hear the steady beat of war drums and knew that time was on the long march again. I expect tonight to be able to see the far away camp fires.

My Diary: The Transformation Point

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I jig sawed myself out of the half open door – which was made from images of hollyhocks beside a rustic gate (a horse and cart in the bucolic distance). The workmen were disguised as pillar boxes as I walked down the axe shaft road to get a copy of the executioner times. I was dressed like Lady Jane Grey save for a motorcycle helmet and flippers – the flippers were painted pink with red roses (some of which were still in bud). On returning home I scanned the plain between the opposing armies for any signs of litter and then climbed into the turret where I work. The arrow slits are shaped like double basses and the door is modelled on an emperor penguin (without his new clothes). I stayed in the turret all day, with a white feather in my wolf whistling hat and binoculars like Rommel.