Today is my 53rd birthday.

I share my birthday with Franz Kafka(123), Ken Russell(79), Tom Stoppard(69) and Tom Cruise(44).

Today my diet is on his holidays.

Today, I shall be going down to the Blood Tub and drinking a lot – starting with Adnams ale and ending up on the floor – a complete A to Zzzzzzzzzzzzz of English alery.

I shall be meeting Franz, Ken and the two Toms there – we’ll laugh, tell stories and get pissed on the fruit of Kent. Kafka will be a bit quiet on account of him being completely dead.. (it’ll still be more than we get out of Cruise though)……

Quite literally hot ‘n’ sticky….

Sunday, 2nd July

After working all day in the garden under a blisteringly hot July Sun I decided to get a very long drink of ice cool water. I strode towards the french windows, brow beaded with honest toil, gnarlied hands with the ingrained hue of home made compost, my white cotton shirt, drenched in sweat stuck to my skin like sticky glue. I began to muse. What figure from literature did I currently resemble?…..

Perhaps a brooding D’arcy, after his lake swim in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice?…..

Or maybe…..

"Do you think I look a bit like Mellors the gamekeeper from Lady Chatterley’s Lover?"

"More like Stig of the Dump"….