My Diary - Page Four
| 01/10/07: I read one of the notes glued to the inside of the capsule before the rocket motors were engaged and it was propelled through the launching tube. The note was concerned with the issuing of the correct numbers of toilet rolls. I wrote the longest message in the world on one of these before riding to town on the back of a frozen ice horse. |
| 02/10/07: I crawled out of the letter box and slid to the ground using an old pair of my wife's tights. I was much later than normal in performing this manoeuvre although I had already performed it inside an empty TV and a crowded goldfish bowl. I passed the Emperoro Nero on the way to town and I pulled out one of the feathers from my head dress and gave it to him. He gave me the thumbs up. |
| 03/10/07: I rushed home from the cacophanous caverns cut into the mercantile cheese so I could be the world's first digital mouse - I then fed the cat. I cleaned the vast halls of Valhalla; sweeping the dust under the fallen warriors to save time. When I had saved enough time I used it all up working in more dimly thought caves - this time cut into the Antarctic ice cap. |
| 04/10/07: I sailed alone in my match stick boat under the scratch marked sky. I parked it in a tree and slipped on a coat of apples and bananas for comfort. I drunk tea with the kindly old sea god before swimming up the waterfall. The waterfall became an anaconda and I became a stick thrown by a hirsute member of a race of giants who ruled the Earth before the rabbit kings. |
| 05/10/07: I felt depressed all day as I paddled in the murky existence stained water that had collected in an asteroid crater after the model Earth my other self lived on had ceased to exist. I pulled a crocodile out of one back pocket and a capsule of rampaging Mongol warriors out of the other. I gave the capsule a shake to see if any artificial snow would descend. |
| 06/10/07: Most of today was spent with the fire twins; flaming hair strands and pythons rolled up in chewing gum packets. We managed to discuss the question of mortality while mayflies played on giant tortoises back. I played my music on the turntable inside my head while they pulled rope ladders from their clothing. I spent the evening with Komodo dragons. |
| 07/10/07: I was standing on a sabre tooth tiger's back in the Mid-American tar pits, feeling depressed as a traction engine rolled over my hypothetical soul - which I keep in it's Sunday best clothes. Despite the old man clinging to my shoulders on the wrong side of the river I managed to tend the flock of sheep plants in their Alpine chill. I then went to a deserted desert to stir the ashes of my dream ancestors. |
| 08/10/07: After going to bed tied to a space craft shaped like an electric guitar I woke in the Russian Tundra holding the frozen remains of a woolly mammoth. I pulled the map of a mysterious star constellation from the rim of my hat (itself based on the plan of the Hoover dam) and started a new regime in the shop which had just been swallowed by a great white sperm whale. I went home disguised as a horoscope - which I refused to believe when I read it. |
| 09/10/07: Another paper aircraft day, with the part covered by sailboat shadow spent in a bird cage alongside attractive avifauna - every now and then a little plastic man would appear, wobbling but never falling over. I picked up the secrets of an ancient South American civilisation which had fallen out of a king crab's shopping bag, made a pyramid and then sharpened a razor blade inside it. |
| 10/10/07: A busy day travelling along two flight paths at once, when I finally managed to land in two places simultaneously I passed some time as a clothes airer with various items of clothing attached to my first world war ship superstructure. I had a brief respite from the talking winds which I happily spent with paint, pencils and mathematical equations. |
| 11/10/07: I disappeared along the nail file track just as the dawn uncurled it's long tongue. I talked to the female gnome squat at the portals of the adventure play ground and was then suddenly swallowed up into a marsupial pouch. After a short repast with the kind old giant I took a kangaroo back to the land shaped like a prisoners satchel. Unfortunately the koala broke down at the top of the hill. |
| 12/10/07: I had been turned into plastic during the night and every time I sat down I stuck to the seat. To counteract this I hung as much as possible from the florescent lights in an ancient Sumarian reading room where I discussed the coming of Plato and Aristotle with unidentified flying objects. I identified them later as semi-organic space bats constructed from the remnants of Sixties tenement blocks complete with damp patches and fallen plaster. |
| 13/10/07: A stressful day, partly clinging to the rigging of an old sailing ship and partly in the orchestra pit rehearing a concerto for photocopier and orchestra. When I finally felt confident with my musicianship I went overboard. I was washed up on the shore of a strange land where everything went in reverse. I walked backwards to the garden gate (which shut in front of me) and got out of bed feeling very tired. |
| 14/10/07: I had an enjoyable time in the pancake garden tending the lemon trees and moving historical moments around like pot plants. My wife and I tied a cord round the middle of the day while we discussed the sunshine. When the sun went down she wallpapered the inside of an oven and I found an off-licence to model the latest trends in wine bottle clothing - luckily I have the figure for it. |
| 15/10/07: I had a lie in this morning (only for a few minutes - honest!). I got up when the cat made a path in the bed clothes for a column of miniature anti-war veterans to march through. I had breakfast in the trenches and then went to see the launch of a Viking longboat dressed in a choice selection of cardboard boxes. I came home with my hair on fire and wearing someone else's clothes. |
| 16/10/07: I measured the dullness of the day (precisely with scientific instruments) as I slowly put on a pair of six guns. I rode a pale steed into the town on the very outskirts of western civilisation. I wrote a message on the mirror in the middle of the afternoon and for the second day running I came home in another person's clothes - luckily this time there were the appropriate slits for my falcon wings. |
| 17/10/07: I opened my door and saw large boulders between the step and the gate. I jumped between each and took a red kite to the historical document I punctuate at odd times. I was saddened but not surprised to discover that I was a full stop on a paragraph that had lasted almost ten years. Rather than write a new story I decided to return to an old one - where I played the Boot that Puss jumped in. |
| 18/10/07: It was very early in the morning when I set out for the land where fairy stories are still enacted - to emphasise this, the toy soldiers (made form cotton reels and needles) were paraded on the white breakfast table. After a brief discussion about red and yellow crab apples I returned to take my place on the corporate mantelpiece. While looking down from the old crows' nest I pondered my past and my future - wondering which one came first. |
| 19/10/07: It was a cold morning, which I spied from a telescope held the wrong way round. The ships moored up against the garden fence were covered in hoar. I took a newspaper to town, crumpled it for a couple of hours and then returned garlanded with dolls holding hands. The evening was spent in one of those places that bridge the real world and an alternative one. I came home in the cold - the ships were moored in anticipation. |
| 20/10/07: From the stick man's observatory I parachuted quite early into a new reality. The flotsam and jetsam communicated telepathically and the music concert was interrupted by the involuntary cancan dancer. I gave her several words to sit on and she packed my lunch box with dried moss. |
| 21/10/07: I looked out from the canopy of the spitfire mark five a bit later than planned. I made myself even later by stuffing a fully functioning weather station into my spare pocket. I then spent all day moving the green damsels in distress that populate the nether regions of the purple world. As I didn't have to paddle my canoe along one of Titan's methane rivers during the evening I built a new town in an old armchair. |
| 22/10/07: I was expecting to put on my armour and mount the old war horse early enough to join the caterpillars in their interstellar foraging; unfortunately I was late and missed the boat to the island where the trees communicate with dog barks. Poppy, the collie/policeman cross had dropped all her leaves by the time I got in. |
| 23/10/07: I stood up and stepped out of the page far too early in the morning. I found the cat inside the television and I turned him over. The kittens were practising the Indian rope trick - June was lighting the filter end of her cigarette and smoking it . I was late going to the dentist. When I got back I put a balaclava on the ceramic guard dog and pretended it was a terrorist. |
| 24/10/07: A busy day. I soon found out I was the only human not on stilts and I ended up having to run through the melee like a clockwork mouse. I soon spied the clockwork cat and went home with artificial kitten food. Once in the ice palace I placed the feeding bowl on a blue and red kite and went to work in the clouds. |
| 25/10/07: I was out in the morning; fired by a bow into a haystack. I got out clutching a handfull of needles and sped home by centiped bus. I spent the middle of the day in a whirlpool; getting giddy and pulling an unknown Shakspeare play out of a hat. I wore the hat home. |
| 26/10/07: Another busy day in the hive. I talked in tongues to the circus animals and sold wooden figures on a sawdust floor. I flew home to my conceptual bird cage and while sitting on a perch talking to the birds of fire I invented a set of clothes based on dog bones. Poppy the dog has got too fat so we both had long walks on the plank protruding from a pirate ship. |
| 27/10/07: A |
| 28/10/07: It was as wet as washed clothes all day. I sucked up the water from the moat and climbed the winding steps to the grey magical turret so that the doves could be released - they flew off in coats of many colours. After several pirouettes on a penny farthing I walked to the shining dungeons with Quasimodo on my back and pigeons flying overhead. The music had teeth and claws that dripped red. |
| 29/10/07: I traipsed around the engine room until the bells tolled for the morning. I went to noon town inside a cage I made myself. The demon fairy was dressed in an extremely bright pink top and I answered the phone to an octopus in blue stockings. Within the book I was flower pressed in the princess knew every sentence before I uttered it and the ginger girl was dressed only in belts. |
| 30/10/07: After a brief period swimming on my studio floor, June and I took the slime mould machine to a medieval city on a rain cloud. Rain dropped from the fish plates that shone in the artificial sun illuminating a facial map of Australia and a procession of country bumpkins on their way to the lost isle of Avalon. I came home with a picture of a girl swimming on her living room floor. |
| 31/10/07: I knew today was going to be a strange day when I woke up with a helter-skelter on my head. I am used to a dunce's cap and a convoy of marching spiders moving slowly into the distance. I spent some time on the record player until I was giddy enough to go to work. The evening was a crane holding a fork lift truck. I walked out of the window and looked out of the door. |
| 01/11/07: I took my weekly trip on the paper boy boat just as the dawn coughed and turned over (she disregarded the sound of the hunting horn in the troubadour distance). I came back in arrow time holding onto paper chains and bags within bags within bags. I walked in the skittle and ball space as the baby girl fed the ducks and my wife told me that the fire in the hidden box had gone out. |
| 02/11/07: The sky split in two to reveal cogs and sundry other parts of machinery quite early in the transition phase day. I had to go the mice city on a the sled holding (as carefully as I could) a landing pad for miniature helicopters used by the micro soldiers I brought into existence in my childhood. I talked to the high priestess for a short period before returning home to lie down on the altar. |
| 03/11/07: This was Microdot's last Saturday. Since the time I had balanced a pyramid on my head (with a dead pharaoh resting on my eyebrows) she had kept all my secrets disguised as a full stop at the bottom of her page. In consequence, I built a toy boat in my eyrie and promised to write a book for her. When we left the deserted house the whole world was painted with thin parallel lines. |
| 04/11/07: I worked during the lace curtain time in the garden I keep in the spare room. Growing things embraced the furniture - while, during the program interval I made a shelf to place my memories on. The sun split into three and I sat down to proclaim my first thoughts on a new religion. I called the chair my Kraken and the halo of mown grass my fisherman friend. |
| 05/11/07: It was a small dawn when I watered my plant collection hanging in the wardrobe. I had to shuffle to town because I had the confessions of my second childhood wrapped round my ankles. For a variety of reasons I could only revolve on the glass stage during the medical dissection part of the day - wearing a map of the world as a turban in the late afternoon. |
| 06/11/07: Today was destined to be a many carriaged sleeper train heading north. As I moved in sympathy the puppet sitting on lap yawned and the urban countryside opened it's King Arthur mouth. I used the crayons I suspend from my ear lobes to write a word in a completely new language. This done, I got a lift home disguised as a dog biscuit. |
| 07/11/07: I got out of several beds simultaneously and washed my early face in a thimble. Most of the day was spent walking in circles (inside rooms with stars on the ground and grass on the ceiling). I had already stuffed as many paper handkerchiefs into my pocket as possible - writing a brief description of the diurnal activities of the common stoat on a scrap of paper as I did so. |
| 08/11/07: My cold got worse as I walked to the high land (of the great expanse of smiling sky) with a portion of English hedgerow balanced on my head. Later, I raced in my snail yacht following a spittle of cloud and attempting to speak my name as many times a second as possible. When I got home I shortened my Christian name to gate - which I slowly opened. |
| 09/11/07: I dragged myself out of the peat bog but realised that the art clock hadn't managed to escape from the submarine resting on the bottom of the wine coloured ocean. I pulled the rope but only bells rang. The frog behind the counter smiled as I placed more swine before pearls. I walked the dry land while the arrows flew and the ancient night star called...... |
| 10/11/07: It was the last day at work for Megan the young bullock who dreamed of being a head waiter in a five star restaurant. We embraced at the lights went out and a canal boat full of refugees from the future pushed its way through the concrete floor we had prepared for a returning Second World War bomber - it had four and a half engines. |
| 11/11/07: I had to dodge the showers when the winged dog and I returned from our sojourn in the sunken lands. I finished the breakfast cereal (a survivor from the gunfight at the OK corral) and went to watch the stream of Danaes falling from chlorophyll coloured sky boats. I turned the page and started a new chapter among the ten green bottles - soon there was only one. |
| 12/11/07: This is my last week of forming part of the floral pattern of a plush international carpet. Seagulls called within the hanging bells as I trudged to the shops across the solidified lake made from facile facial expressions. I briefly held up the Earth while Atlas visited his mother. I then dug a hole in the past and buried myself in it. |
| 13/11/07: I felt very sorry for myself as I had to climb out of the hayrick with grass stalks instead of eyebrows. I noticed a periscope revolving in the sitting room but didn't think any more of it. Having licked a skyscraper window amount of stamps I discovered that the smile at the bottom of the page was false. |
| 14/11/07: Today was a comma sort of day and I didn't see a full stop anywhere. The sonic screwdriver was in my hand during the sandwich filling time and I glove puppeted the walk home. The afternoon was puff puff and "Pam of the evening" showed me to how dial up the Knight Templars to describe the visions I had of the lady in the pink petticoat sky. |
| 15/11/07: I was out in the morning disguised as a walking canoe. I waltzed through the rapids and tangoed down the waterfall. I then came home inside the world's biggest chicken. I had to pace the deck for a couple of hours before unrolling on a honeymoon carpet. The evening was shorter than anticipated and a stick of seaside rock came through the door as a surprise. |
| 16/11/07: This was my last day on the Spanish galleon. We sailed into port (with two glasses each side) as the moon turned into a sickle. I had spent a lot of my caterpillar crawling time trying to find a piece of string but still managed to trip over the words I had written earlier. The mummified cats had already lined up to dance the cancan - Ali held on tight as the last wave went by. |
| 17/11/07: The start of a new snail person era. I felt tired as I was peeled of the backing paper and spread on the arena floor. I picked flowers and planted myriads of model Earths while the sellotape clock kept ticking. The voice in the sky was learning a foreign language and the police came to the water rats who live next door. I raised the flag and lowered my eyes. |
| 18/11/07: Large fish were hunting for small men as the stair rods came down like old people in wheel chairs. Having several sacks of time in my hands I sat in the Red Indian shed chanting and moving my peace pipe pencil in complex spirals. The lost tribes walked round aimlessly in the prison yard. I went out to unlock the door and then went out to lock it again - having never gone inside. |
| 19/11/07: I walked to the paint draped town for the very last time, pulling behind me a horse and cart. The dungeon man and I took the boxes downstairs after I gave the puzzled fairy my flowers. On the walk home I invented a new form of mathematics so that every sum now ends in zero. The redundant fly and I contemplated the future while riding a hump backed whale called the Flying Saucer. |
| 20/11/07: I went to the seaside, I had the customary bucket over my head. I got very wet walking to the solid rock ships and I dropped in on a friendly white witch to dry out in her vapours. The railway stations were talking among themselves and the train went in and out without being noticed. I tied a polecat to a stick and waited for another. |
| 21/11/07: The morning was wreathed in buttercups - hands were removed from breast pockets to grasp them. The ladder leant against nothing and cast man like shadows. I pulled the room apart to form a field and walked out in it until the weather (still walking on stilts) changed and the rain man danced. I danced with a lady who had a mobile phone for a head. |
| 22/11/07: The alarm went off inside a marsh mallow; Poppy, the dog, took off her pyjamas while I made a World War Three sentry box in the bed. The caves were quiet and I roasted memories in cans strung on string. Pipe Man visited and we held up the traffic in the kitchen while June, my wife, held up the stagecoach in the parlour. I wore a skirt for the evening. |
| 23/11/07: I went to the fern frond capital city of Echo Land before the blind was pulled across the night sky. I engaged in a long debate about which towns look best wrapped up in string vests with the old voice from the armchair - Searchlights from ancient adventures still streaked in the living room - and then came home with visions of broken teeth reflected in pools beside windmills. |
| 24/11/07: Today was a strange day and I never found out what to call it. I called the evening Emily (it called me Christopher Robin) and diligently sorted out all the sparkles on the surface of the sparkle machine. I pulled a rope home, remembering all the people who were never in when I called. Once inside, I swam in a glass of red wine which had been stirred with a tuning fork. I settled down to sleep in middle C. |
| 25/11/07: It was another scissor dawn as my wife turned into the vapour from a crocodile's nostril. I laid sellotape across the garden while the sky jellyfish floated over head. Most of the documents were filed in the heart of cabbages as I paved my own path to the bottle bank where hobby horse people pretend to give blood. The evening was contained in a recyclable can of silence. |
| 26/11/07: I was shot into the air by a giant spring at point zero of the flash light morning. I sanded down the scratch marks on the wall and walked the dog to place where the start is also the finish. After discussing the calls heard in the night with a vociferous toby jug I came home and tied myself into a knot. There were no scouts around as the lift descend into the pit at the end of the day. |
| 27/11/07: When the telephone rang I woke and found myself spread out on a giant hand. I shook it and watched the news on a wedding ring television. By noon all the ladders had descended from their roosting place in the ceiling. I had already walked the dog to a crater on the moon and back. We were not allowed to feed the ducks. |
| 28/11/07: Poppy and I went for a long walk (this after going up a ladder and coming down a snake) to the younger person lakes - the first time since an older age set in. The dog wore sandals and I was dressed as a Spartan soldier. All cars travelling to Artists Way had big grins attached to their bumpers. I went out alone in the evening. |
| 29/11/07: It was my usual boat trip across the desert in the morning. I embraced joviality in the Giant's sitting room and unpacked an imaginary bag. The journey home was shot from a bow and I arrived home to see the apple split in two. I ate a slow pie in the non urgent afternoon and went out this time as two people. |
| 30/11/07: I woke up walking and I was half way along the plank before I took the budgie coat off the hanger and put it on. June and I went to short hair mountains where I worked in a cave. The afternoon was a grey wig and I surrounded myself with small pieces of paper with pencil marks on them. The rain later filled my bowler hat. |
| 01/12/07: It was the day before Dragon Sunday so I took the opportunity to take all the captive crocodiles for a long walk over the eyelid bridges. I expected a message and had my trusty steed (called Fred) ready. I spent the afternoon in the planetarium making stars - I pretended I was one of them. |
| 02/12/07: The wind blew like Stanley Spencer curtains. I put my possession in one wellington boot and stepped in another. I spent most of the day as a rock outcrop in my studio along with my chimney friends. I talked to the one in the clouds about a model railway. |
| 03/12/07: When I was unpegged from the clothes line I walked with the baby to the amoeba lakes - I was surprised to see the house of toffees and brown cardigans derelict and roofless. I missed my connection and was later found sleeping on a pool table. I had two pages of dry cider and then walked home. |
| 04/12/07: It was an early start as Toad of Toad Hall and I spent the morning balancing mattresses on my head. I took a break for dinner and stood by the local railway siding as a signal - when my arms came down a train sped by. The afternoon was cut loose from its moorings and my ship (still with an unbroken champagne bottle embedded in it) sailed off into the secondary colours distance. |
| 05/12/07: Poppy dog and I went for a long walk, holding the pristine spirits of all the water faeries I had ever met. We walked to the outside lakes where swords stand like water reeds and I tossed a coin - as it was heads I came home where a garland hung over a hole in the wall and my new mobile phone was shaped like a coffin. I paid homage to the wolfman. |
| 06/12/07: T |
| 07/12/07: T |
| 08/12/07: T |