Always hate morning going . . .

I read Doctor Sax all morning and afternoon. Certain instances, phrases and passages are just so effective: “The day stretched to noon with a faint whitish glare now come into the halyards of the blue and the trumpets have stopped sounding, half lost their dew – always hate morning going. . . .”

This is what I meant when I told the interviewer at Watermouth that Kerouac writes of moments I have experienced too: that time back in March in London setting off for the gallery along clear fresh glittery streets, bright new enticing sun of morning so full of promise, so different from the worn out “whitish glare” of high afternoon, the draining afternoon sun drying out all vitality. Optimism gone.

Lee rang and said everything he was looking forward to after exams now feels so boring and that his days are blurring into one another. On Friday he's going on a family holiday to a Bournemouth caravan.

I MUST NOT BE BORED. The house is silent. Dad's on nights this week and is upstairs sleeping. Clock-tick, fire-hiss, pale sky, tired sun. Birds cheep outside over the distant roar of workaday traffic, and now a train too. . . .

Tesco at four, N. Ireland 2 v 2 Austria and then bed.