I wrote, I slept, I wrote a bit more. Life is challenging right now. As I write at 8 p.m., having completely forgotten to post this, I’ve got through the day with two loads of laundry done—that’s a win. And the living room is tidy for the social worker’s visit tomorrow.

I wrote about the broken gearbox in the van below. Angus, the local mechanic, got back to me: The repairs are going to be just over £2k. It’s not good, really not good. I shall abide, somehow. I have thus far, haven’t I? As my friend Jim once told me, I’m a survivor. My orthopaedic surgeon taught me the word stoic when he described me as such for the manner in which I endured multiple surgeries and rehab following my accident. Now, if only I could find the power adapter for the audio interface I had in my hand a couple of days ago. Two hours of searching, and still nothing, although I do now have a much tidier cable box!

It was a lovely writing session this morning, out on the porch with the sound of birdsong, marred only by Jock's strimming.

If you'd like to join the slow read of Cannery Row, it's being run by my friend Ines on her Substack.

The Foreign Edition

For curious minds and slow readers. Deep book analysis, intentional living, and systems for self-directed learning.

It’s a sad day for the Camser and his missus. My mother-in-law had a stroke a month ago and needs looking after, so my wife has moved out to go and take care of her, leaving me, Hamish and the cats in Scotland. It was a fraught day yesterday, loading the Hay Hutch onto the roof bars, filling the green container with horsey stuff, loading the single bed and mattress, so fraught in fact that I didn’t get a single photo of the loaded car. D’oh. So, instead, you get a photo of the horse truck that’s taking the three of them down to Cornwall.

Links

Ines’s Substack for the two slow reads I’m joining today.

The Foreign Edition

For curious minds and slow readers. Deep book analysis, intentional living, and systems for self-directed learning.

I had a fun writing session on the ferry back to Arran; it ended up being a bit different from what I usually write.

Perhaps I’m feeling the effects of reading Helen Garner’s Collected Diaries!

Links

• People’s Faces, Kae Tempest (YouTube)

• How to End a Story, Helen Garner

I just wanted to get the pen moving again while I recover from a migraine. I'm not too keen on this Rohrer & Klingner Maroon ink, though. What do you think?

I’m also not sure about my upcoming slow reads, given that my wife is moving out this week to go and look after her mum, and I have a big meeting to rehearse for in mid-September. Could I fit in Yevgeny Onegin? I think so. I suppose migraine recovery day is not the ideal time to be planning anything. Plus, the emotional side of my wife’s moving out is bound to hit me in surprising ways.

I bought a bunch of pen refills for my Karas Kustoms Retrakt pen, as the Pilot G2 refill it shipped with had expired. I ended up buying four, as I wasn’t sure which ones would be compatible and the Internet was no help whatsoever. Long story short, the only one that worked without any modifications was the Ohto C-300 Ceramic Rollerball. The Uni UMR-85 Gel Roller did not fit, nor did the Pentel LR7 Gel Ink. The fourth one I bought was a Pilot G2 refill, as I knew it was the only one that was guaranteed to fit. So, now do I buy Uni and Pentel pens to fit the refills?

The pen itself is the brass edition and it’s really heavy. I kinda regret getting the brass, although it does smell great and has gained a nice brass patina over the years. I wrote with it this morning and noted that it works well in my Pebble Stationery Co notebook with Cosmo Air Light paper, but not in the Leuchtturm1917. The ink feathered in the Leuchtturm.

I worked out that I was the same age as Adrian Mole when he wrote his diaries in the month of Live Aid. I’d never made that connection before.

Hopefully listing those refills will help anyone searching the Internet for compatible refills. And now, to my pages for the day, written with the Ohto refill.

Links

• Eugene Onegin, Alma Classics, Roger Clarke translation

• Yevgeny Onegin, Pushkin Press, Anthony Briggs translation

• Eugene Onegin, Bristol Press, Russian with stress marks

• Poetry Reader for Russian Learners, Edited by Julia Titus

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I spent the weekend scanning old letters and it was a real trip down memory lane. Shame I don’t have any photos of my in my suit when I was doing my placement at the EBRD, but we just took fewer photos in those days.

Links

• Jimmy Carr on Modern Wisdom

Am I really going to lead a group through Yevgeny Onegin on my book channel? I think I just might be. I read it in Russian with a teacher in Odessa in 1995, but I remember very little. Most of what I know, I know from the Tchaikovsky opera, which I was lucky enough to see at the Philharmonic in Odessa in 1996. I bought it on CD when I got back home and have also watched it on YouTube many times. It’s great to work to.

So yesterday I bought two translations and an original Russian edition. I’ll figure out the timings later.

Links

• Yevgeny Onegin, Pushkin Press, Anthony Briggs translation

• Eugene Onegin, Alma Classics, Roger Clarke translation

The Hill of Beans is seeing some new activity. I got chased by a big digger yesterday! I barely managed to escape!

It was a good practice session, though. I learned two paragraphs of ritual.

I took a trip to the mainland to attend an appointment at the Musculoskeletal Podiatry department in Irvine. Then I went to Glasgow to collect a repaired 2015 MacBook Pro and meet my wife off the train from Cornwall at Glasgow Central. A busy day!

The podiatrist was really good. Why don’t we get them coming to Arran any more? Ah, budget cuts and unreliable ferries. Yes. Of course. I got heel wedges to go into my shoes and a referral to have shoes made for me to wear with my suit—which I do a lot, given my Freemasonry hobby. She also recommended a few brands of shoes that would be way better than the rather flat Vans I was wearing: Brooks, Hoka, New Balance and, one I’d never heard of, Altra. So I went shoe shopping in Glasgow while I was waiting for my wife’s train to arrive and wound up buying these Altra shoes with a decent discount. They are very, very comfortable!

Here’s what I wrote on the ferry to Ardrossan.

I forgot that the TWSBI Precision always smudges after refilling. It's all part of the fun of fountain pens!

Stephen Donaldson’s quote about his lack of fecundity:

No, I never “fantasize spin-off stories and histories” in relation to my own books. As I’ve said before, I’m not a terribly fecund writer. I don’t get many ideas. Which is why I milk them for all they’re worth when I do get them. <grin> And it’s also why I feel that when I do get an idea I must use it. If I ever start turning down ideas, my imagination is going to stop giving them to me.

From ‘The Gradual Interview‘.

I found myself moved by the death of a character in my Thomas Covenant book (The Power that Preserves) and wanted to write about it. I didn't mention the location, though, and I wish I had because it has such a great name—Hotash Slay. Isn't that great? My writing is obviously personal, so there will be spoilers for the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

And no, I drove to Claonaig from Lodge Glencoe’s installation in Kinlochleven, not Ardrossan or Troon, but I was listening to Sons of Darkness. I know that as I took a photo the next morning while waiting for the ferry back to Arran. I love the way that books imprint on my travelling.

I finally made it to the top of the hill after chopping back the bracken and brambles to clear that path. Now I can practice my masonic ritual on the forestry road in peace and get some exercise while doing it. That’s where I learn best.

I made a short video so you could hear the buzzing from the privet hedge and get a look at my reading chair.

Links

• Liza Libes on The Odyssey

• The Rest is History on The Odyssey

• Len Pennie on Word for Word

• human1011 on Word for Word

• How to Kill a Language, Sophia Smith Galer

I wrote my pages on the MV Caledonian Isles ferry from Brodick to Ardrossan this morning. It was a nice day for a day trip to Glasgow and there were no, I repeat, no ferry cancellations or delayed trains (well, just one delayed train on the way back to Ardrossan, which meant it arrived after the ferry’s scheduled departure time but, miracle of miracles, the ferry waited for the train. That’s a first!) What does it say about public transport in Scotland when it’s a thing to be celebrated? Anyway, I digress.

I thought about not going to the book shop because my TBR is humungous and I couldn’t think of any titles I was looking for. But then isn’t that the best bit about visiting book shops, finding books that you’d never even heard of? The Pape book (A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict) looks interesting, but at 140 pages for a tenner, it’s not the best value. I read Joe Sacco’s comic book Palestine a few years ago and that was great, but I felt I could do with some more information about the conflict, so a tenner spent.

Isiah Berlin’s book, Russian Thinkers, grabbed my attention as I was heading to the loos in Waterstones (the gents was out of order, but that was okay—they had another one on the top floor). It sounds right up my street, a series of essays on such luminaries as Turgenev and Tolstoy. How could I not?

I actually sought out the Helen Garner diaries (How to End a Story: Collected Diaries) after reading Petya Grady’s latest post on journaling methods. She’d recommended three and this was the only one that the Argyll Street Waterstones branch had as I headed back to Central Station.

Here is Petya’s post. It’s a topic that obviously resonates with me!

A reading life

This is NOT a Julia Cameron // The Artist’s Way hate-post

A few months ago my friend Charlee Brooks gifted me a copy of Helen Garner’s diaries. I brought the book to my office at work where I read it in little bursts when I have a solo lunch break. The book inspired me to pick up a few more diaries of inspiring women…

Read more

2 months ago · 105 likes · 73 comments

And here’s what I wrote, which, as Petya talked about in her post, has me acting like a whiney bitch ... or dog, I suppose, given my sex. She has a point, though—it is all too easy to whine in one’s morning pages and spiral down rather than lift oneself up. I try to catch myself when I’m doing that.

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

I found myself writing about a podcast episode I listened to through the night when I couldn't sleep. The episode is linked at the bottom.

Links

• On Taking Pictures, episode 376: Shrink-wrapped in anxiety

• Rick Booth - Photographer

• Helen Redfern’s piece: My Orange Tick Disappeared, and I Didn’t Even Notice

Stop Hiding Under the Desk

My Orange Tick Disappeared, and I Didn't Even Notice

Gaining my orange bestseller tick was one of the highlights of my writing life. This might sound shallow as it’s ‘just a number’ and we’re told ‘we shouldn’t be guided by metrics’, but to me it repre…

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2 months ago · 12 likes · 11 comments · Helen Redfern

Yesterday was a migraine day, and I didn't hold out much hope for today either. However, it cleared and I got to the end of my 40-page chapter analysis of Doctor Zhivago and the first draft. I'm feeling pretty chuffed about that.

Links

• The Power that Preserves, Stephen Donaldson

I used to hike a lot on Arran. Sometimes I would make hiking videos because I enjoyed watching others' hiking videos. Then, one day, I stopped. Someone called me out on YouTube, and it ended up finding its way into my writing this morning.

Links

• The Illearth War, Stephen R. Donaldson

• The Power that Preserves, Stephen R. Donaldson

• My Whin Dyke hiking video

Welcome to our family, Rupert!

A headache day. 😦

Links

• The Reading Habit That Changed How I Understand Books, Sabrina Nesbitt | PhD student —

• How not to forget what matters, Henrik Karlsson and Johanna Karlsson —