16:16

Yes, it could start here, and why not? The start of my five year plan to stop getting so fucked up in my head. Because I haven't smoked in a few days, an excess of saliva has built up in my throat. I've been blustering like an old Colonel in my bedroom, drinking flagons of tea to clear the blockade. Yesterday Batty & I sat in the garden for the first time over a cup of leaves. I noticed the tree at the back of the garden, as if for the first time. IT DEVOURED THE SKY like a green mace. The sky was seal grey, smeared with fatty clouds. It'd gotten hotter at last. My bones were warm. We talked with the neighbour.

'Alright lads. How's tricks?' It was the father of the house, with his screaming progeny running rife about him; he was continuously stopping to scold them in Indian or English.

Batty had picked up a toy from the paved upper half of our garden.

'I could use this', said the ever industrious Robinson,
'Keep it! I bet that's the first time you've heard that'. I liked the father: his face was kind and strong.

This lead into an inevitable conversation about what we do as artists.

'You do paintings then? You tried that gallery up the road? (the _______) etc. Touchingly naive, but interested, like a cabby.

Maddening to think we'd been in this house for eleven months and not once sat in the garden to drink tea and talk for an hour. One hour in the munificence of those many days. I felt guilty almost. It was like Batty said:

'You can hoard all that time up and not do anything with it. You keep imagining this vital time you've built up is mine mine mine, (making a scooping gesture, like a highwayman / miser drawing in his riches); and still nothing. It just goes to waste'.

(note the use of yellow for dramatic effect).

Soon after Charlie came and dropped Minda's keys off, discussing moving into the house. Joy! She noticed some weird growths coming from between the paving slabs. Batty plucked one and threw it at my bum crack as I was stooping over. They laughed.

From Horace's Odes: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

Seize the day, trusting little in the future. And I might add a little embellishment of my own:

Grab a minute, innit.