Wednesday 17 April 2002

Well, my work rate has now increased from completely stationary to very sluggish.  We've had the painter in (no, that's not a euphemism for anything biological, a nice man's been decorating our house) and this has necessitated packing most of our lives into cardboard boxes and sticking them in the cellar and the attic. On Thursday I spent 10 hours dismantling the study.  It's a bit like moving house, but without the luxury of removal men coming and packing everything for you, taking care only to drop the items of greatest sentimental value.

Anyway, the painter is done, the study is a comforting womb-like shade of red, and the huge Bakelite clock I rescued from the church hall of my youth now hangs above the fireplace, but pretty much everything else is still in the cardboard boxes.  Now that I've unpacked the essentials of life like the record collection, it's a real temptation to leave everything else out for the bin men and start from scratch, but I know I'd regret it sooner rather than later.  When you do a few different kinds of work, Stuff (capital 's') accumulates quickly.  We moved here a couple of years ago, and I only kept things in the study that I thought I'd need on a regular basis, as I didn't want walls of shelves filled with books and files like an academic badge of honour.  But the room soon filled up, and it's a good discipline to try and pare it back to a minimum again.  A sort of Californian 'recipe for a calm life' (try not to throw up).  Ingredients: one well-used room, several very large cardboard boxes.  Method: place the entire portable contents of the room haphazardly into the cardboard boxes.  Remove these from the room.  Enjoy the peace and tranquility that results.  Now replace in the room only those items which are a) necessary, b) clean.  This may take some time.  I think perhaps I should put some shelves up in the attic.  

I heard from Chris again today about US tour dates and some recording with his Ensemble in the summer if I can fit it in - it's just possible that my free day in New York in August might coincide with the sessions, which would be a miracle.  This morning I assembled a press pack of ConCal photos and recent reviews to send to a US agent who's been in touch, and managed to do a bit of token practice for the gig I've got in Belfast this weekend, a BBC broadcast playing in Adrian's group La Serenissima.