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Most nights nowadays I listen to a video such as the one above, which helped me sleep last night.

I have the volume fairly low. And I might place the phone face down, so the light from the screen doesn’t undo the good work the audio is doing.

I started listening to these things at night during a period of appalling insomnia, probably about a year ago. These days, or rather nights, I’m sleeping like the proverbial baby.

And videos of this sort have played a part. I like ones in which one can discern the ‘plop’ of individual drops. As opposed to the ‘frying bacon’ effect of some. I guess that could be described as ‘slow heavy’ rain, as opposed to ‘light fast’ rain?

There are loads of such videos, and channels devoted to them. One hopes they are benign!? The good ones – and most I’ve tried seem pretty good – are 8-10 hours or longer, in duration. And, crucially, are not interrupted by the evil blight of advertising.

We’ve been considering letting out a room for aeons. Indeed, we did so, via AirB&B, briefly, five or six years ago.

I’ve been very much opposed to it, to be honest. We’re in our 50s now. I don’t want to be sharing our home with strangers!

But circumstances have arisen whereby our brother in law Antonio needed somewhere to live. And we were able to provide a solution.

He moved in today. Or rather tonight. Arriving after 9 pm, having travelled from Spain the same day.

* Photo taken 21/4/24, i.e. not the day he moved in.

Woah, Nelly! I just roused myself from a rather unpleasant dream. I wonder why such things happen? Is the mind rehearsing scenarios from which to practice escape? Or is it just the morbidity of plain unadulterated fear?

I kind of don’t want to give the ideas in the dreams the oxygen of further thought. And yet at the same time they’re darkly compelling and fascinating.

At one point there was a veritable maelstrom or kaleidoscope of imagery. Indeed, it’s my suspicion most dreaming us like that, with the conscious part of the mind trying desperately to parse some of it into meaningful narrative threads.

Amongst the tsunami of weird stuff there were pleasant bits – banks of daisies in twilight meadows (the source of that easy enough to discern; something I saw last night whilst out delivering*) – but I didn’t see anyone driving a car in reverse at breakneck speed, over massive potholes, eventually causing their vehicle (a steampunk altered Robin reliant type affair, with rear view periscope doodad!) to cartwheel through the air.

One of the darker threads revolves around finding oneself trapped in an imminent demise you can’t prevent scenario. And the feeling of unavoidable impending doom was what caused me to wake myself up. Why allow my own mind to inflict such a horror story in itself?

My dad has said, very often (and esp’ so in recent years), that he’s disturbed a lot by nightmares. I’ve had spells. But not recently. And that’s despite real life circumstances that one would’ve thought conducive to deep anxiety. Might there be a genetic hereditary component? Or perhaps this just overspill from all my recent psychic trauma?

Another theme that emerges from this nighttime psychic Freak Out (hence the above-linked video) concerns how we as a species seek to control our own and others minds.

But one upshot of this moment of weird brain activity is that some aspects of it seem like perfect material for a crime thriller short story plot. Albeit a potentially psychedelically surrealist one…

*

A company selling groovy music posters appeared in my FB feed. They have several I really like, including the above.

Pangur Bán and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:
His whole instinct is to hunt,
Mine to free the meaning pent.
 
More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thought, my alcove.
Happy for me, Pangur Bán
Child-plays round some mouse’s den.
 
Truth to tell, just being here,
Housed alone, housed together,
Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art.
 
Next thing an unwary mouse
Bares his flank: Pangur pounces.
Next thing lines that held and held
Meaning back begin to yield.
 
All the while, his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I
Focus my less piercing gaze
On the challenge of the page.
 
With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills.
When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult.
 
So it goes. To each his own.
No vying. No vexation.
Taking pleasure, taking pains,
Kindred spirits, veterans.
 
Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,
Pangur Bán has learned his trade.
Day and night, my own hard work
Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.

Seamus Heaney’s translation, from 9th C. Old Irish, of an anonymous monk’s poem.

Faith, the cat, of St Augustine’s Watling St:

‘… beyond the fatuous clamour, the silence…’ Samuel Beckett

Wow! I love that.

It’s wonderfully warm and sunny out, today. So we spent a bit of time in the garden.

Ah, the simple pleasures! Heinz cream of tomato soup with buttered toast, in the garden.

Each year the wisteria growing over the green room frame gets more established. It hasn’t flowered yet.

We love how sunlight enlivens the structure; the glowing natural lines of vegetation contrasting with the man-made geometry of the structure.

I think we’re due a bumper crop, fruit wise, this coming year. Certainly the apple, pear and fig trees are all pretty fecund.

And the bees and other pollinators seem to like the garden as much as we do.

This afternoon I removed the masking tape, from the newly repainted feature wall, started to repopulate the room with all the stuff.

Jus ol’ Tom back up on this wall, so far. There’s a filing cabinet in’t corner, that needs to come out, and live elsewhere. I also need a better way to store the bull fiddle.

The main light in the room is an ugly glaring naked bulb. That needs sorting, ASAP! I wonder, can I get something that’ll attach directly to the thread visible in this pic?

Blah…

The feature wall in the drum room was supposed to be ‘Dragon’s Lair’ blue. The same as the Guest Room. But summat went awry, and, as you can see below, we wound up with two different shades of blue. Bummer!

At the top of this post is the final shit I took before turning in for the night. Turned out well! The above, by contrast, is the first pic, aka ‘Making a Start’…

So, I’ve obvs gone with a different colour, for this re-paint. The change was prompted by the moving of two full sets of bookshelves, out of the drum room. The colour is ‘French Mustard’, once again from B&Q’s Valspar range.

The lighting in this room is awful. And it’s cramped beyond credulity. Which makes working in there pretty hard going! Still, with Frog Tape and plenty of patience, I’ve got one coat down.

I’m glad I opted for a full tin of paint. I nearly went with just two sample pots. That’d’ve been less than half the cost. But it wouldn’t have been sufficient for two coats. And as you can see, this needs at least two coats.

I did wonder if I should’ve done a white undercoat? Painting on top of the dark blue was bound to create issues. Esp’ so as it’s also two differing shades of blue.

We’re now watching One Million Years B.C. Raquel Welch is mesmerising. Stunning! At some point, however, I’ll be off upstairs to do another – and I hope final? – coat.

It’s 11pm, and I’ve just finished the second coat. It’s still looking a bit uneven. But let’s see how it looks Tamara.

It’ll also doubtless look a lot better once the room itself is better organised. We’re in a permanent state of flux, at present, getting the Blue Room ready for Antonio, with lots of stuff floating around whilst we try and reorganise.

The above was an accidental snapshot. But I’ll keep it, ‘cause it shows the colour, to some extent, with less distracting detail.

Back to One Million Years B.C. I have to say, I like this film a lot. Esp’ for certain aspects, such as the soundtrack – both sound design and music (much grunting, little speech – fab!) – various aspects of visual design, and stuff like the dinosaur animations (Ray Harryhausen). Oh, and of course, for Raquel Welch, in a furry bikini!

It’s nearing midnight, and the volcano has just erupted (in the movie; that’s not a euphemism for r reaction to Andress!). The film ends! Brilliant. Must’ve been something special back in the day.

We had dinner in the garden yesterday evening. Lovely!

As the light started to fade, Teresa had an inspiration…

The moon was out, looking alien yet lovely. After dinner, some vintage Partridge. Lovely stuff. ‘Not my words, the words of Shakin’ Stevens.’

Went to bed about 10.30-‘ish. Slept very quickly. That in itself is unusual. Pooped from all the DIY, furniture and book/stuff moving, I reckon.

Butt… woke up at 2 am. It’s now 4.15 am. And I haven’t slept at all in that intervening two hours plus.

Arthritic pain in left hand first finger remains excruciating. Regular co-codamol only dampens it. It’s not reducing the inflammation

Mind is active. I’m thinking I’ll re-paint the drum room feature wall. The blue in there isn’t working. For starters there are two non-matching shades. I think I’ll go instead for a mustard yellow:

B&Q opens 7am. Think I’ll be awake till then. I’ll buy some Valspar French Mustard, and some masking tape.

Maybe just read until then?

LATER…

Well, I eventually fell asleep, around 5am. It’s now 9.45. So I got in a good shift of sleep after all.