My leg is still giving trouble. On Tuesday I went along to see the nurse, Judith, at the Kew health centre and she said that the wound now seems to be dry, and that I don’t need to have dressings any more: I shall be without dressings for the first time since last July.
However, I should have been wearing my compression stocking but I didn’t. So during the week, it proceeded to weep with great large blisters and by Friday it was looking a mess and one of them was looking rather red So at 9 o’clock I rang up to make and got an appointment for 10.30 at East Sheen.
She was very displeased with me and said I should have been wearing my compression stockings and bandaged me up again, so back to square one. I see her again on Monday.
Literary agents
Otherwise I have been preparing to send off an application to the literary agent, Felicity Bryan in North Oxford and I have been writing yet another application letter. Let’s hope this one works!
First we made for the Rugger Stadium, which is quite a long way from Twickenham itself, right out in the fields. We went round the back and saw some of the fields.
We then made our way to Twickenham itself, driving right through the middle of it. It’s quite a long High Street and very broad and Wendy was very impressed. At the end, we went round Twickenham Green and then decided to visit Turner’s House on the way back there. We got lost, which meant we were able to see something of a very pretty waterfront.
We eventually discovered Turner’s house, which in itself is very pretty, but set in the middle of suburbia with houses all round – I wish I had taken a photo of the surrounding area.
But the original print from Wikipedia shows how pretty it must have been originally.
Then back to Richmond Bridge – an approach to Richmond I had not seen before. We decided to visit Lichfield Court, a block of flats in art nouveau style, which Wendy feels might be very suitable for Fiona. We went all round it, and we had a good look and even saw the interior courtyard and I took a lot of photos. Yes, it could be very suitable.
Then return and had omelettes for supper. We had a big delivery from Sainsbury’s on Saturday and they substituted boxes of 15 mixed eggs for 12 large eggs, so we must use them up quickly.
Last week I mowed the grass, which was beginning to look very straggly, but now looks quite smart
Tuesday was Jessica’s birthday and in the afternoon we all met up on Kew Green to celebrate. The lockdown has now reached phase 2, so we were allowed to meet, so Wendy and I drove over and managed to park, and then sat on a bench, while the others sat and played around on the grass. It was a delightful afternoon, we have been having wonderful weather, with hot sunny days and it was wonderful having a good talk with Robert.
The next day Robert came over and sat in the garden coming in through the Victoria Gardens gate and we had a long talk about the magazines and his plans for advertising campaigns in America. But I still can’t persuade him to do any promotions in this country.
Literary AgentsOur main task has been to try to find a literary agent to sell my book. I discovered a firm called Jericho writers, which produces a list of 800 or so agents, which can be sorted. I sorted it by those that have history in their description, and were in the UK and I got 251 names, which we downloaded and we then went through them all, looking at the individual names and eventually got about 20 or so, which deal with history at all seriously (most only dealt with social history and the like), and there are half a dozen which seen possible. We were allowed to consult the list for free for seven days, which we did. If you want any more it will cost is £30 a month, which is rather a lot. We are now sorting them all out and see which ones we should approach.
Mouse. And then there is the mouse. Wendy has discovered a mouse in the garden, and really got some old-fashioned traps from Robert, which were quite useless – the cheese disappeared and they traps were not sprung, but I got another couple from Amazon and we caught two straight away. I also bought some peppermint drops to spread round the back door.
Finally, I have discovered a lovely new game with Fiona. We make the bed together. I put the mobile phone on Wendy’s dressing table and set it up to do a video and then she watches me making the bed and shouts at me all the time. She just loves it – and it gets the bed made!
Friday, 22 May 2020
It was blowing today, so I mowed the lawn. Wendy came out and trimmed the edges then I came back in at and that about 5.30 I rang up Ronwen and dictated yet another version of my opening letter for the literary agents. I wonder what it is like?
In the evening I had thought that as a reward. I would watch some television, so I did a catch up on this series on Normal People with two young Irish students fucking each other.
In the penultimate session we had a breakthrough, where the girl was shown fully naked, with a picture of her black bush, and today in the final session we even saw the man’s penis, while he was being fondled by his naked girl-friend, which must be a breakthrough for the BBC.
Yesterday, he was the 75th anniversary of VE Day, so we had a street party organised by Laura at number 2. It was a fine afternoon and went off very well.
Wendy talking to Laura and her husband. Don’t know who the girl in the miniskirt is.
Andrew and Wendy at the VE Day party. Photo taken by Laura or possibly her husband
Me, standing in the road, photo taken by Laura
Laura sitting outside her house, with her grandmother’s parasol
In the evening. Wendy had ordered a meal from Rara which was very good.
My leg is still giving trouble from the ulcer. I have been along to see the nurse twice, once at the Kew retail Park surgery on Monday and then on Thursday at the Sheen Lane surgery. I am wearing stockings over the top of the bandage.
Jean, Wendy’s sister is apparently getting better. She has only rung up her daughter Jane once, but said that she is still alive and that the kidneys are still very poorly. Still we hope she is getting better slowly
I have not been doing much work on the book. At the beginning of the week I sent off an application to Coombs Moylett publishing agents, but have heard nothing in return not even a formal acknowledgement. I have finished my review of Greg Woolf’s book and sent it off to Matt. I have also been doing the final revision of my article on Roman Barcelona with a sad email from Carolina that Antonio’s wife has died from Corona virus and that he is in hospital.
I have started reading Peter Wiseman’s book on the House of Augustus.
I have been trying to make these Musings website work I do not know what success.
4.45
Have I just been out sunbathing naked in the garden – it’s a gorgeous day. However Wendy was sitting outside and when she saw me naked, she hastened to put something across my middle. But as soon as she went away, I took it off then 10 minutes later she came down and found something else to drape across my middle.
And why not sunbathe nude? to one side the Lithuanians have gone away, she has joined her husband in Switzerland for the shutdown and on the other side, they can only see me from an upper bedroom window, which I don’t think they used very much. So what the hell? In any case, Wendy is wearing her very short shorts in which she looks wonderful – she still has super legs!
May 12 2020
This afternoon, Wendy cut my hair!
Yesterday I dictated the house of Augustus to Ronwen, who sent it across and today I have been correcting it.
Yesterday in the evening I had a long session when I finally worked out how to transfer pictures from my mobile phone to the computer via a USB cable. It was a long process, but I eventually found the right click, hidden away, where you had to scroll down a lot of junk to see the crucial click.
But having done so I downloaded all my mobile photos of this year and some for last year and put them in the right folders . It is very good to have them all at full resolution
It has turned cold!
Today I have been preparing a long order from Sainsbury’s for delivery, 9 o’clock on Thursday evening. It already comes to £190
14th May
I had a good day yesterday. In the morning I put in some orders for Amazon for a jumpstart for the car and also some birthday presents for Izzi. But then in the evening I signed up to Jericho Writers to get some names of literary agents for my book. They give a weeks free access to their list of agents, after which it costs £30 a month. I signed up free for a week, but then I set to work, selecting those agents who mentioned ‘history’, and UK and found 251 potential agents. They come in seven batches and I downloaded the first batch on 10 sheets of paper and then went through them adding notes and found a couple of real possibilities.
I also thought of a new title for my book. Instead of Barbarism and Civilisation, how about How the Greeks invented Civilisation. I am inspired by this by seeing Matt Ridley’s blog about his new book he is about to get published called How Innovation Works. I thought I should try out the word ‘how’ in the title of my book. I think it works much better.
I have also been having some new ideas about how I present my philosophical ideas and I think the answer is to use the word ‘liberal’, or ‘liberalism’ or ‘classical liberalism’, but liberalism still sounds good and I can even add inspired by Hayek. I must now get down to rewrite all my introductions along these new lines.
My leg is still giving trouble. On Tuesday I went along to see the nurse, Judith, at the Kew health centre and she said that the wound now seems to be dry, and that I don’t need to have dressings any more: I shall be without dressings for the first time since last July.
