WFH: DAY 85. 6.30 am: A communion. 7.00 am:

8.00 am: ‘Get on with it!’ Mail to mawl, decisions — for which there was neither guidance nor resolution (presently) — to consider, late postgraduate applications to review, a dissertation outline to look over, and a medical appointment to secure. Presently, there’s little hard information about how Covid-19 interacts with M E (which I suffer). Some of those in recovery from the former have testified to symptoms that are synonymous with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Theoretically, an M E patient who catches Covid-19 could experience a profound relapse. Thus, the prospect of a return to face-to-face teaching in September has given me (a long) pause for thought.

10.00 am: Finally, I could put my head above water and consider future research funding. Amid the deadening inertia of admin, the prospect of grant applications inspires a gentle ecstasy these days. (Bit sad!) In any case, it helps to have a clear sense of priorities for the coming few years.

11.00 am: An X-Vocational Practice Teams social. These occasions aren’t comfortable for all students; but for those who are at home with virtual get togethers, they provide a means of underwriting affiliation and mutual support. A time for hanging loose.

Even as I was talking, emails with a short fuse were dropping into my inbox like large hailstones. 12.00 pm: I bid my farewell to the congregation and got down to business, pronto. How often has a task that I’ve been putting off for ages taken only five minutes to complete. 1.00 pm: ‘0’ mail in inbox. (Rejoice!)

1.30 pm: Admin and teacherly things behind me, I returned to the first composition in order to listen to the progression and level of volume and apparent loudness across the whole … and only that. A ‘massive’ crow fight broke out on the roof above me. ‘OI!!!!! … OIIII—–YYA!’ (I hollered, like only an Abertillery boy can.) On with the second composition — which is now far better than its first iteration. The mishap with the lost files had turned into blessing.

Alongside composing, I sustained, periodically, conversations with several of my postgraduate contingent. For one of them a light dawned. even as we exchanged emails. I wrote:

This is one of those too rare moments when the artwork ‘speaks’ to you. It’s a ‘revelation’ of sorts. However, as the artist, you needed to be in the right frame of mind, and with the requisite experience of the work, to be receptive … It’s that end of the jigsaw experience: the pieces fall into place very quickly, and the picture (which was there all along) declares itself, complete.

As it was proving, too, for me in my composition. Sounds found their ground effortlessly. It had not stopped raining all day. There was no opportunity for my usual circumambulation of the town. 4.30 pm: I read instead.

7.30 pm: I concentrated on making small adjustments to the second composition’s second-level sounds, in order to fill auditory gaps between transitions. Coherence was close; I could smell it on the air.