This is so true.

As soon as one's language goes a few yards off piste Autocorrect bounds in to help like an over-enthusiastic St Bernard with a little barrel of distilled clichés. On the other hand, my spelling is so bad that I do kinda need help. #dyslexia #autocorrect

What? We the government was chaotic, acted "too little late" on Covid and thousands died as a result? Possibly the least surprising result to come out of an independent inquiry. But good to have confirmed. Lest we forget. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Once I've finished this pass through the novel, I'm going to allow myself with a few days of sketching and printmaking. Partly as incentive/reward - to get me to the end. But also to break myself out of the intense critical mode of thought that goes with late stage editing.

I took this seven years ago. Since then, I've returned to that spot every autumn (except for the long covid years) but I'm yet to see a repeat of theses colours.

Want to reduce immigration? Easy. Go back in time. Stop Britain colonising/asset-stripping half the world. As a result, English is spoken only in England. Prosperity is more evenly distributed, reducing warfare and instability. Fewer people are driven to seek refuge here. QED

Contemplating the possibility of adapting a salad spinner to extract the last of the mayonnaise. Working out the wording for my gravestone. (Creator of the Mayonnaise Spinner TM). Everything computes. However I don't have a salad spinner. I attack the container with kitchen scissors.

You know those nature documentaries where small woodland creatures are seen carrying dead leaves in their teeth, with which to line hibernation burrows? Well, perhaps from some deep-time species memory, I find the temptation of a good leaf impossible to resist. And I have pockets.

Handed in my print at the Museum for the Open Exhibition. While I was there, I browsed the Egyptian section. Here is actual footage of thr Great Lighthouse.

Yesterday in Morrisons car park, Glenfield.

This caught my eye on my walk to the Writers' Club this evening.

I tend to make the mistake of not considering the frame until I've finished the print. Happily, I found a frame to fit this one. Getting ready to take it in for the Leicester Open exhibition at New Walk Museum.

I'm sure there was something I should have remembered today.

Instagram congratulates me if my posts one week reach a larger audience than my posts the week before. As if that was my goal. As if one genuine interaction with an individual was somehow less important than an uptick on a graph.

Being no longer employed by a university, I'm now free to talk about the bad management, money wasted on vanity projects, cruel treatment of lecturers, unsustainable workloads, widespread burnout and mental health crises - all of which seem common in the HE sector.

And they hadn't yet invented the National Student Survey or staff appraisal software...

Spotted on my walk this morning. Only had my camera phone to hand.

I'm delighted to have had this relief print, 'Distraction', accepted for Leicester's Open Exhibition. The exhibition will be at New Walk Museum. It runs from the 14th December untill the end of January.

Is it normal to cry while editing? #AskingForAFriend

When I started my writing journey, I didn't know how many of those miles would be filled with editing. #WritersLife

Seaweed. #StillLife #Seaweed

I'm struck (yet again) by the positivity and supportive goodness of Leicester's creative communities. Diverse individuals making things and connecting to each other, and thereby resisting some of the most destructive trends of the age. #Leicester

This morning's still life. #Pumpkin

Fingerprint of the Wind I took this one on Borth beach a few years ago.

If only I'd started hoarding all the fluff from the lint trap when I bought this drier, I'd have enough felt to make three and a half yurts by now. Quite how there's anything left of my clothes, I really don't know.

I saw these numbers today and quite liked them. So, there you are.

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T' Curve, Leicester.

I am so surprised. This is my surprised face.

The history of Hellenistic Egypt would be a great deal easier for me to follow if its royal family had invented more than two names. You can only read about Ptolemy marrying Cleopatra so many times before the grey mist descends and you end up playing Candy Crush.

Bought myself a pair of 'gardening gloves' yesterday. So far, nothing. What am I doing wrong? Do they need batteries?

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I'm in that strange time between sending the novel out and getting feedback from my kind Beta readers. This book is such a departure from my previous novels that I really don't know how it will land. So there it is, on the edge of becoming. A liminal space of autumn light.

Pumpkin Earth. Breakfast doodle. #Inktober

Not only did this second-hand jigsaw puzzle have all the pieces, it had an extra bonus piece.

Fly agaric from our walk this morning.

Breakfast doodle

I couldn't resist buying these. For art rather than soup. Let's see if they last as long as the ones I bought this time last year - one of which is still sitting on the shelf.

This evening in Glenfield.

This was not created by AI

Happy October.

What to do with a trimmed edge of paper

Still life on the breakfast table.

My father as a young man, apparently learning to fly.

Leaf update from this morning's walk. Yes, it was still there. I guess it can't have been that windy in the last 2 days.

I walked right past this leaf yesterday - two or three paces before registering what an amazing thing it was in just that light. Retraced my steps, working the phone camera quickly before the light changed.

I'm asking myself if my back has recovered sufficiently for me to risk giving myself a haircut... I'm thinking yes.

I'm one bit of proofreading away from being able to give copies of the novel to my generous beta readers. It's a really exciting moment for me. In celebration, here's a snippet from the book. (The quote might sound similar to my earlier novels. But the book has a very different tone.)

Just submitted my entries for the Leicester People's Exhibition. Three linocuts, all of which I've shared here in recent weeks. It's interesting to compare my entries this year to last. Then, all colour. This time, all B&W. This time, representational expressionist. Last time, mostly abstract.

What do I do after I've 'finished' writing a novel? I can't turn off the tap and stop the creative impulse. But I'm also burned out from writing. So... this morning, I'm printing a small edition of this linocut. (The image has already worked its way into the novel during the last edit.)