6.15 am: I ran to the Promenade and back:

There were few others about, save a homeless man sleeping rough in the Public Shelter, an ample young man pulling an equally ample suitcase, three eastern women togged-out in spectral gym gear, and a senior lady walking a very small dog, who smiled and said ‘Good morning!’ as I pulled myself along the homeward stretch. I looked towards the horizon, and imagined what lay beyond.

7.20 am: I showered and afterwards (like the unpossessed demoniac, Legion) was ‘clothed, and in [my] right mind’ (Mark 5.15):

8.00 am: A communion. 8.45 am: There were a few emails to attend to, including expressions of condolence regarding the School’s recent loss. I’ve been touched. If only there was a way to gather up their tears and expressions of love, and hand them on to Phoebe’s family. I engaged a brief Messenger exchange with her mum. Never pretend that you know what a grieving parent is suffering. One can have only sympathy; any claim to empathy (unless you’ve experienced the like) is as fatuous as it is insensitive.

9.00 am: I began the working day cutting an old grey shirt into pieces, for rags. The act felt metaphorical, idiomatic, and ritualistic – an unmaking, a reassignment of purpose and identity, a redemption of what might otherwise have been cast away:

I returned to the studio having been, of necessity, absent for too long. The Biblical Record album was played again. Again, I listened for any variation in the equalisation of the tracks’ volume and loudness. Anomalies persisted. But, then again, so did I. I’d crack this. Next week, I’ll begin writing the text for the CD booklet and designing the cover and gate-fold for the sleeve. I’m looking forward to that.

1.30 pm: Time out. In town, I succumbed. I succumbed, again. Shameful! (Your clearly on the slide, buddy!’, my ‘muse’ chastened.) I learned never to argue with her. Caught with my fingers ’round the rocky-road:

Before returning home, I walked along South Beach, where Amanda finds glass pebbles. The crunch of soles upon shoreline and the rush of the incoming tide have such happy associations for me, still. I like to live dangerously:

2.45 pm: For the final part of the afternoon, I heard the tracks on a different set of studio monitors at lower than optimum volume. All the time I was considering projects to come. By the close of the working day, I’d achieved unity.

5.00 pm: Down time.