Summa: diary (April 1-2, 2026)
April 1 (Wednesday). 7.00 am: Proof of presence:
7.15 am: The month’s and the day’s first ambulation. I’ve been told that the light during the first few hours of the morning is unusually beneficial. I picked up 2 litres of milk from an express store, and headed home for breakfast. 8.00 am: Facing me (sigh!) was a malware infection caught from an incoming file-transfer last night. (‘You should’ve used a condom, John!’, the inner-tutor smirked.) A combination of email advice from my computer-tecky and online tutorials helped to resolve the problem.
11.00 am: A coffee-exchange with the landscape writer Julie Brominicks at the National Library of Wales. We traded the blues, bashes, and bruises we experience as writers. Bounty bars (blue ones, naturally) and drinks were enjoyed. A secular Eucharist, of sorts. We could’ve talked for hours. Conversation is the most enjoyable way of generating ideas and possibilities. But the question: ‘What are you going to do next in your work?’, is a guaranteed show-stopper.
1.30 pm: The day’s second ambulation. I had a paint-swatch catalogue to return to Tom, the proprietor of Clements. He’ll retire and his shop will close, soon. Tom can no longer turn a profit; the business is a casualty of the large, out-of-town DIY outlets. There’s been a decorating retailer called Clements in Aberystwyth for nearly a hundred years. Unlike so many here-today-gone-tomorrow employees in decor chain stores, Tom knows his merchandise intimately. Local painter and decorators cut a path to his door as much to receive professional wisdom as to purchase paint and brushes. What he doesn’t know about grades of sand and wet and dry papers, isn’t worth knowing.
2.15 pm: High above me, sounds like unto a poltergeist infestation persisted.
9.00 am: Approaching night. Looking westward towards the sea:
April 2 (Thursday). 7.30 am: A communion. 8.00 am: Remote-studiology. I can’t remember the last time my studio had a view onto the world. I looked down upon it, imperiously. I’ve become aware of people’s routines: 8.00 am: a male-nurse walks down the road from the nearby estate towards the local hospital; a father drives his son to and from school at 8.30 am and 3.40 pm; and the courier vans pass beneath my window, between 10.30 and 11.00 am.
11.45 am: A discussion with my practice nurse about taking adjunct medication, and my sore big toe. A referral was in order. Ageing can sometimes seem like an endless series of medical consultations about body parts that are beginning to falter. You need to keep on top of it all. Nip the problems in the bud. Seek advice immediately and regularly — even at the risk of sounding like a hypochondriac.
When I returned, two crates of new slates were parked on the roadside outside my house. They looked like heavy-duty sculptural articulations of Helen Cass’s work. ‘Would anyone else see them this way?’, I puzzled.
By 4.30 pm: I was two ‘illustrations’ short of the full suite. They’ll be resolve within three hour, following my short holiday. It’s always helpful to have something on the bench to which to return.
DIARY SABBATICAL UNTIL APRIL 10, 2026.
See also: Intersections (archive); Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice