The howling wind, the rattling windows and the silencing of the human voice. It just takes the weather to keep people in (or to get them out) but tonight they’re definitely in hiding.

Sometimes when the rain comes in tandem with the wind, the shapes they make together become lively flying water darts that somehow seem to rain horizontally instead of vertically, pricking the skin of your face. But that’s just a confirmation of the wind’s power as it changes the rain’s direction and rushes the endless clouds across the sky. Sometimes it will take a vehicle, especially a tall truck, and tip it over onto the road and yet it has no physical body, just its invisible strength. In wilder regions, it devastates whole cities, islands, countries. What must ancient civilisations have thought of the wind? They could feel it but they couldn’t see it. Bad weather was an omen of anger – still today the humans go to the supernatural to take solace in things they can’t explain. I hope there is an afterlife so we can all get together and laugh at the living, perhaps only in death can we be one, amusing ourselves with our ignorance. “The answer my friend is Blowing In The Wind”.

Sunday is usually sessions and football day but only the one sesh with Tony happened in Australia because the clock changing confusion made me miss Doug in the US. I still can’t figure out what time it is in America even now. I’m not quite sure why it’s so confusing, it’s pretty simple really but there’s something in the air, something that’s throwing everything off. Between lockdowns, pandemics, wars, and politics, the Earth is uneasy. The worst thing about it is the stubborn refusal of the humans to compromise to find a path together, it all seems so unnecessary and all so frightening.

I have to be up in the morning for an early session with Tim in Sydney, our clocks have gone back, theirs have gone forwards so they are 11 hours ahead (see, I’m starting to understand). Although the Ethiopian calendar has 13 months and is currently 7 years behind the Gregorian calendar because they still use the calendar that the Roman Catholic Church amended in 525AD – confusing for sessions. Take these as examples of how confusing it might have been: William III of England arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November (Julian calendar), after he had set sail from the Netherlands on 11 November (Gregorian calendar) 1688. At the times of their deaths, Cervantes and Shakespeare were living (or dying) in different countries. Spain had already changed to the Gregorian calendar whilst England was still using the Julian calendar so although Cervantes and Shakespeare died on the same day in April 23rd 1616, aged 68 and 52 respectively, Cervantes died 10 days earlier. Confused? Go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar

French today had me flying out of the Pearl League where I finished 6th and into the Obsidian League, just one league from the top (for football fans, I’m in the Championship, Olivia is in the Premier League). Like Fulham, West Brom, Sheffield United and Burnley, it’s one thing being in the Premier League, it’s another thing staying there. You have to perform and the French is getting harder. To carry on with these ridiculous football analogies, France won the World Cup twice in recent years and are still the holders, so I’m hanging with them. In the pool the other day there was a local French man (a man from France that lives in Cornwall). I’ve spoken to him before and he has that classic French accent, I wonder how we sound to them, that is presuming we have a decent knowledge of the language and can converse. If I had my life again I would study languages in a more disciplined manner, it’s getting a bit late to conquer all the languages that I wish I spoke better. But they say it’s never too late and five months into French every day I’m feeling pretty good about it – je comprend.

Music today had me listen to the new Hawkwind album Carnivorous (2020) which has been released under the name Hawkwind Light Orchestra. It’s a double album and I read somewhere that it was supposed to be a Dave Brock solo record but by the time other band members had got involved it had come out under a version of the Hawkwind moniker. What’s it like? If you like Hawkwind you’ll like it but it is exactly how its described, Hawkwind Light. I thought it was something to do with the type of songs but it becomes more Hawkwind in the instrumentation as the record develops. I haven’t quite got the measure of it yet, I’ll be listening more, it’s just great to see bands like this continuously releasing records.