Month: November 2020

Sunday, November 29: Monday, November 30. Too much trifle before bed. Will I never learn my lesson. Sleep was sporadic. I dreamt that David Bowie had made a comeback. That’d be quite an achievement. 8.30 am: What was before me this week? A lighter load, mercifully. Emails awaited. Projects are moving towards their conclusion. A space is beginning to open…

8.30 am: Breakfast (reversed). 9.00 am: Studiology. I made a final pass over one of the ‘Geographical’ compositions. ‘Was there a better way … ?’ Off screen, studio equipment was either put away or moved to the bathroom for the final ‘field’ recording. The CD project was moving to the close of the compositional period. Thereafter, I’ll be committed to…

7.45 am: A communion. 8.15 am: Off to School via the town and the supermarket to set-up my tutorial room. Again: This will be the final week for face-to-face tutorials. Thereafter, the teaching provision will be entirely online for the remainder of the term. We’ve all done well to get this far without coming a cropper. This week, the third…

8.00 am: Preparations for the day ahead. There’d be a further online Open-Day at 9.15 am, which would take up most of the morning. In essence, staff serve a role equivalent to those anonymous folk who respond to queries about products on internet sales sites: ‘How may I help you today, sir/madam?’ There’s a good deal of waiting around. (Not…

We’d spent a few days north of Aberystwyth. It was the first time I’d slept under another roof since March. Only when you begin to relax does the extent of your tiredness becomes evident. A restorative period, nevertheless, and one that helped to strengthen my resolve as I pushed towards the end of term. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 pm:…

7.00 am: Dark morning: 8.30 am: Studiology. I returned to ‘John Williams’ and to the tune that I’d constructed from parts of seventeenth-century Welsh tunes in reverse — a tune that I’d finalised, and of which made a recording on my phone, while walking into the wind down Plas Crug Avenue some days ago. The capture was intended as an…

8.20 pm: Into town and onto School. (Repetition.) Overcast; wind and rain (again). My day for third year painting tutorials. (Always.) In the spaces between tutorials, I planned out the week to come. I doubt that any staff member has got used to teaching under these conditions. Nevertheless, we have adjusted our expectations. Face-to-face followed by online followed by face-to-face…