6.30 pm: As the sun rises earlier, then so do I. 7.45 pm: A communion. 8.30 am: I battled against the on-coming wind and rain in a landscape reminiscent of a George Chapman painting. There’re regrets, longings, and the pain of loss that come upon one suddenly and unbidden like a sea squall, and violently like a blow to the…

Sometimes, a good thing comes masked as evil; and sometimes an evil thing comes masked as good. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Adminy things. So much of life comprises small and incidental responses, adjustments, and motions of mind. Such need to be corralled, so that the bigger issues and more ambitious enterprises have space in which to grow. 9.00…

7.00 am: I awoke to a downpour. ‘Focus. Fulfil the routine. Concentrate on what you’re doing rather than feeling. Your days are numbered; they’ll pass more swiftly than you can imagine.’ 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: I made adjustments to the morning’s schedule in order to fit in a medical appointment. 9.00 am: I reviewed yesterday’s studio work during…

7.15 am: Downstairs for breakfast, with Enid – and her twin sister Ethel on the corridor’s opposite wall – ever wakeful and looking on imperiously: 8.00 am: A communion. In between appointments at Saturday’s busy and demanding Visiting Day at the School, I published an extended blog on my sound exploits and forthcoming album: ‘The Biblical Record: Converting Scripture into…

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth (Psalm 124.8). 7.30 am: The garden was awakening to the onset of Spring: 8.00 am: A communion. Some time ago one of my tutees, who’d an admirable concern for the wellbeing of her peers, remarked that in her experience most students get drunk because they feel hopeless.…

8.00 am: A communion. The wind beat down upon the house; and I recalledthe stormthat buffeted my heart, and took awaywhat I had valued most. 9.00 am: I arrived at the School and departed immediately in order to buy milk for staff (who were getting restless for their first coffee of the day). 9.20 pm: The dispatches, a period of…

If you haven’t learned self-discipline during days of fair weather, you’ll be hard pressed to do so when the storms come. 7.45 am: A communion. 8.30 am: Off to School to vanquish admin and prepare for the morning’s two-person lecture with Dr Forster, entitled ‘In Our Day: What We Did When We Were Undergraduates’: The objective was to convey the…

Just before bedtime, I received a telephone call from an old friend to inform me that Martin Budd, one of my secondary school music teachers, had died at the age of 88 years. Mr Budd (I’ve never been able to call him by his forename) encouraged me to take up singing and an orchestral instrument, even though I was conspicuously…

8.00 am: Catch up! I dealt with emails that couldn’t be completed while I was away, affixed images to three days of this dairy, fixed appointments to my teaching timetable, dealt with postgraduate applications, and considered by contribution to this evening’s event. However quickly I pushed ahead, these tasks absorbed far more time than I was comfortable affording them. 1.30…

9.00 am: Out of the hotel onto the street, the bus, the train, the tube to Tate Modern and the Pierre Bonnard: The Colour of Memory exhibition. No sex, self-harming, brutality, death, murder, and mutilation here (which things were the stuff of the other exhibitions that I’d seen this weekend). This was a essay, rather, on domestic contentment, quiet joys,…