As it has been since self-quarantine began, the day began overcast with torrential rain. Clare cooked our Saturday breakfast pancakes garnished with crab apple puree, chocolate sauce, and mashed banana. A great remedy for a dark autumnal day. At the end of the morning the cloud thinned enough for sunlight to penetrate and lighten up the garden, then the cloud cleared entirely, and unexpectedly given weather warnings for very heavy rain over the weekend. Would that the pandemic could throw us the occasional surprise! The growth of covid-19 infections shows no sign of slackening and projections for the rest of the year are gloomier and gloomier. We can expect heavier and more widespread restrictions next week.
Since I've been confined to exercising inside the house unable to use the garden due to the weather, I've shifted from listening to 'talk' Radio Four over to Radio Three, with its rich diet of classical music and other kinds of modern music. plus record reviews and conversations with musicians and scholars. It greatly lightens the daily monotony attached to pacing indoors, and often awakens memories of music listened over the past seven decades.
I prefer silence when I write. Listening to music or conversation is too distracting. Outdoors in the street and the park I don't listen to music, but my surroundings, and only occasionally listen to radio news. Walking around the garden in Ibiza daily however, I did listen to lots of jazz and Latin music albums sent me by Kath and Owain. It was a lovely consolation, living in isolation, confined to the chaplaincy house for weeks, I felt close to them and to my roots.
Trying to sit and write for any length of time when the wound is uncomfortable or painful, also robs me of concentration. These days my legs and back are strong enough to allow me to stand instead, but short of finding a stand-up computer desk to buy I've settled for temporary, unsatisfactory solutions so far.
This morning, however, I realised that a small bedroom chest of drawers is just the right height, and moved it into my study, into a position where light from the window is just right. It may look messy and cluttered, but I can live with that. It's my 'man-cave', and the amount of stuff in it offends Clare's sense of order. I need my works-pace to work for me and satisfy my current needs. As I write, it works well. Hopefully it's not going to be a long term solution.
I watched the final episode of 'The Same Sky' this afternoon. It had a surprising twist in the last few minutes adding to the portrayal of life's complexity in a city divided, by the partition of Germany at the end of the war and then compounded by the Berlin Wall during the Cold War.
A recorded broadcast of Puccini's operal 'Tosca' from Covent Garden started on Radio Three at supper time, one of the operas I know best. Starring Bryn Terfel as Scarpia, Angela Gheorghiu as Tosca, and Jonas Kauffman as Calvaradossi. Such emotionally powerful music, wonderful to listen to. It brought tears to my eyes. Just as it finished the latest double episode of Danish crime drama 'DNA' started on BBC Four, which I watched on iPlayer. It's interestingly complex.
There was an interesting programme on Radio Three this afternoon about the environmental impact of music making. Someone has studied the carbon footprint of cloud music, video services and the record industry. It was quite disturbing to realise the extent to which the world going digital is contributing to climate change. Looking back on my media usage for today, I admit to feeling rather guilty. I could do without the car, go abroad without flying, but whether in lock-down or out of it, not have internet access altogether would reduce my quality of life immensely. What are we doing to ourselves?
