Up with the leak taking centre stage. Filipe the plumber came at 12.30 to see what was happening. What was that running down the walls from above the bathroom, nice brown streaks (always brown), and the tiles of the false ceiling starting to stain? Filipe came in, touched the flooded floor and realised that the liquid was burning the flesh, some kind of drain blockage liquid to burn out the chunk of yuck in the pipes upstairs. So, apparently, the woman upstairs has a flooded kitchen and tried to unblock the pipes with something nasty that didn’t work and it mixed with the flood water and came through the ceiling. At 10 PM, you could hear them upstairs trying to sort it out. What happened to the day crew? Towels on the floor had to be soaked before they went into the washing machine, domestic bliss.

It was over 30°C again today and I made my way to the farmácia to see if I could get a Covid test with fewer steps or with English instructions, even the diagrams had an odd quality to them, making them hard to follow. I pulled the open test out of my bag – English on the outside, Portuguese on the inside, she said she’d just show me, but then one of the parts was missing, a small test tube with fluid in it. It had fallen out into my bag, I eventually found it and she talked me through what I had to do, scraping, twisting, shaking, squeezing. I still haven’t done it, today has been sesh and music madness, but I’m still coughing.

I hit the shops, cruised the supermarkets, I let a tourist go past me in the aisle, he used the feminine form of thank you, ‘obrigada’. His wife was waiting by the pillar for me to come by, I knew she was there, but I waited. In the end, after what seemed like an eternity, I continued, she was just standing there waiting for me, it seemed like I could have read a chapter of my book and she would still be waiting. (Reading a chapter of my book, what a concept, she could have been there for months.) I saw her again by the fridges, I told her to tell her husband to say ‘obrigado’ not ‘obrigada’ but then she told me they’d only arrived this morning from Lisbon, great that they were trying to speak to the locals so soon, although mistaking me for Portuguese might be far-fetched.

Sesh with NJ Brian Valley of Salt at 7 PM and Ohio Jeff at 10 PM. Atlanta Craig and Blueburst as well but lots of emails, we are in constant touch at the moment as the album is nearing completion as is the Valley of Salt record and Jeff’s projects. Same with Arktik Lake, the single Bright Sunny Days is finding some airplay in Oz. Where will these projects be available? When will they be available? Will they be physical, digital, CD, vinyl? Will there be a pre-order for any of these records, should there be limited vinyl runs…yes!

Music today has been Dot Allison’s great new album Consciousology (2023). Born and bred in Edinburgh, she still lives there, she was the singer in One Dove who made just one record, Morning Dove White (1993). Since then, she has made seven solo albums and this one is the first that I’ve investigated. Highly recommended.

Music Of The Daze