Owl Woman

I finally got to see Man on the Moon last night. I have no huge interest in Andy Kaufman - to me, he was the one who spoilt Taxi with the irritating character Latka - but the film was made by Michael Stipe's production company, so that was enough for me. And the film was very good. Carrey is excellent (much to my surprise) as Kaufman, who seems to have spent most of his life setting up one joke after another, so much so that I wondered if anyone really knew him. It certainly doesn't make for a sympathetic character - if those closest to you don't believe you when you tell them you're terminally ill, it's surely a pretty sad state of affairs.

Today is a beautiful, sunny day. I've been painting and working on the novel and even had breakfast sitting out in the sun. Later I'm going along to Penzance Promenade to pick up gf from her new job. At this rate, I'll be going early to sit under a palm tree and look at the sea. I dropped her off earlier and drove back over the hills. There's a layby where I always pull in to take in the view. Today it was to a soundtrack of Tom Waits' Mule Variations. A man had stopped there to re-shoe his horse. It was wonderfully serene.

It's been an exhausting couple of days, meeting my gf's first ever gf and showing her around the area. We got on really well, actually - met up in a pub in St Ives, much to the curiosity of a, ahem, straight woman, then wandering around the town before going for more beer and staggering onto a bus home. Yesterday I drove our guest all around the Land's End peninsula, stopping off for the first time at the amazing Pendeen church - a church with castle walls! Oh, for my camera... Then we went to Priest Cove, crossed country a couple of times in order to make a quick stop at Lanyon Quoit, and finished at Godrevy. The sun was out by then, and we lay on the clifftop, looking down at twenty or so seals sunbathing and playing in the cove, while a helicopter landed on the field behind us. Felt very Famous Five. But it made a nice change to get on with a current gf's ex. They usually don't like me. One tried to pull my thumb off, part of an exciting evening many years ago, but that was fairly extreme; they tend to try and split the relationship up instead. Anyway, it seems we've got a bit older and wiser. Boring, huh?

I first saw the Merry Maidens from the air. I was in a helicopter (noisy but fun) flying from Penzance to Tresco on the Isles of Scilly and below us appeared this amazing stone circle. Since then I've been back many times. The energy of the whole area (near Lamorna Cove) is very special, very magical. Just before you reach the Maidens, look to your right and, if the hedgerows aren't in full leaf, you'll see the Pipers, two very tall stones leaning at angles in adjacent fields. The Maidens I've walked around, through, and studied from the gate at the edge of the field they're in. It's a very well known and easy to get to site, so summer time it'll be busy, but I go in quieter times. I always feel re-energised and calm after I've seen them.

I have a cold for the first time in two years. It's not too bad - I've been driving and painting and suchlike - but it also feels as if I've been punched hard on the nose. Homebrew sloe gin and lots of painkillers are helping a lot.

Today is the Spring Equinox, and I was interested in spending some time on the Women's Land a few miles south west of here, but I didn't get around to getting directions. Women's space is less of an urgency with me these days; West Cornwall does have some hostility (young men driving at chucking out time who act as if their dicks have been cut off if you overtake them) but it's nothing like London. However, I would like to see what goes on in these places and give my support to the sisterhood, although how much use I'd be sneezing and spluttering, I don't know. It's nearly dark, and I'd like to mark the start of Spring in an appropriate way, so I keep looking out of the window to see if it's a clear sky. To go up on Lelant Downs and star watch for a while is an incredible thing to do, well it is for this city girl. Standing around in complete darkness is scary, but exhilerating.

The second draft of the novel is well on its way. I spoke to girlfriend about it yesterday, in detail as it turned out. I've spent the last year and a bit wrapped up in the story and the characters and I don't know anymore if any of it will mean anything to anyone, so it was good to hear the view of someone who doesn't actually go for dark fantasy or horror writing. And she liked it a lot. "It was like reading a proper book," she said, which was a real compliment, because of course it's almost impossible for her to be objective. So it's time I hassled the agent again, because I want to see the thing published.

I've been trying to get back into my old blog for a few weeks now, but can't find any way in, and so I thought - first day of Spring, good enough excuse for a new blog. Now let's see if I can remember how to use the damn thing.

First of all, a link to Happy Tree Friends, not clever or grown up, but very funny, if you like your cartoon violence gory and unsubtle. It reminds me of Duckman, where his two assistants Fluffy and Uranus meet a terrible end in every episode. This kind of leads me on to the wonderful Flat Earth, great comic writer/illustrator and all round good bloke, who I heard from yesterday for the first time in ages. Keeping in touch with people can be hard, especially when you respect/like them enough to want to do more than say hello, but it's very important to me to do so. So if you know me, I hope you're feeling good, huggy vibes right now.