First thing. Off to town, where I’d cash in my prescriptions, buy a ‘journal’ at Smiff’s and combustibles at the Farmers’ market, and dispatch a parcel at the Post Office:

The neutral sky, like a wet white bedsheet, dampened the colours, the sound, and the mood. Next thing. I wanted to get my mind out of assessment mode. The samples of sounds that I’d been recording in the studios during the week were equalised and entered into a simple compositional development: a chamber orchestration of scraping, rubbing, banging, drilling and sawing. Conceivably, this could be one of three parts. The other two being, next week’s sounds as the works are hung and, the other, the hubbub of the Opening. I determined to leave the possibility open:

While searching for a book (which was, oddly, not in any of Aberystwyth’s libraries) on my shelves, for two students undertaking one of the British Landscape exam questions, I came across another. It was the catalogue to the 1977 Hayward Annual.  (This was the year that I began art school.) Caro, Caulfield, Cohen, Hoyland, Martin, Denny, Hill, and Hodgkin — all of whom had a significant influence on my undergraduate development in fine art — are represented by tired, grey illustrations:

Mid afternoon, I opened again my CD booklet text file. I’d been away from this for too long. The problems in the writing were, now, clearly visible and readily solvable. Concision and clarity are of the essence.