Even the very wise are capable of making foolish choices.

8.15 am: A communion. 8.40 am: The April air was carried on a strong and enlivening breeze. Far above, cumulous clouds were shunted like loaded railroad wagons from the seaward side of town, inland. 9.00 am: I arrived at Old College for the first of the day’s MA fine art tutorials.

All my BA and MA tutees are heading towards finalisation of one sort or another. Endings are as problematic as beginnings. Each student was looking for a sufficient and justifiable conclusion to their endeavours. But endings are merely stations along the much longer journey of their artistic career.

10.15 am: A cancellation allowed me to take stock of things at one of my local watering-holes. Some places are imbued with the echoes of past encounters, conversations, and confessions. There I remembered happier days, in some ways. Nothing lasts. Our frailties and confusion are the undoing of so much that’s good. These stories cannot be told. Only God can bear to hear them. For they’ve run too deep for too long to be fully comprehensible to another human being.

11.00 am: Further tutorials at the School before breaking bread with a friend at a favourite eatery in town. We discussed politics (unsurprisingly), art teaching, and religion (across the Judaeo-Christian boundary). Conversation as communion: a growing together in awareness, respect, understanding, stature, and joy.

2.00 pm: Back at homebase, I addressed the morning’s incoming post and its implications, before returning to the studio for a stint on the mix. I eek out whatever time I can for my work during teaching and admin days. It may take only five minutes’ attention to resolve a significant problem or come to an important realisation. (Conversely, it takes only one moment’s inattention to undo everything.) This afternoon, I concentrated to the bass frequencies and degrees of reverberation. Listening. Ever listening. Closer. Closer:

Each element of each track was pressed harder and harder. Shirkers weren’t tolerated. ‘Either row with the rest or be cast overboard’, I warned. At this point in the process, I’m utterly ruthless in my cuts.

4.30 pm: Wil ‘the carpet’ made a delivery. 5.00 pm: Distant thunder: an object lesson in natural reverberation. By the close of the afternoon, I’d sliced off nearly two minutes from ‘The Lesser Light’. Rain, hail, and wind. The temperature had dropped noticeably since lunchtime.

7.30 pm: Back to Viva preparation for the remainder of the evening. It’s like making ready for a military campaign. To examine another, one must first examine oneself.