In absentia

I’ve been AWOL but I have an excuse: I’ve been trapped in Abbey Road Studios. Oh no, silly me, it’s my back room; it just looks like Abbey Road. The thing is, we are now coming to the end of a process that has seen what the estate agents would call a second reception transformed from office-cum-crud-heap into a musically-oriented withdrawing room. In return for me spending lots of money in furnishing it, I’ve had to give A a bit of space in which to install his homage to Jean Michel Jarre. I only had one criterion – it had to be neat. So he’s gone and bought a three tier keyboard stand that looks like some sort of medieval step machine and has spent all weekend carefully plugging everything into everything else: keyboards, drum machine, mixing desk, amp and laptop. Sounds impressive doesn’t it? But he doesn’t really play as such, just amuses himself with the internal electronics and external knobs, making a succession of ridiculous bongs and parps and weeaaaahhhhs and werrggghhhs that have the dogs heading for the exit. But he’s happy, that’s the main thing, and he’s also kept within the 10 square centimetres I gave him as his room allowance.

There’s a vile rumour afoot that we’re off to the boat next weekend – now where did we leave it?

And talking of a foot, Arthur's is healing up very nicely. It was only a bit of his toe that was amputated, not the whole thing, thankfully, and it doesn't seem to have affected his ability to charge up and down the stairs. Or skid into the kitchen at the sound of the fridge door opening....