Over the Ginnel

The cat and I are sulking. He is better at it than I am. More committed, I think.

Ben is in (stupid) Bristol and there are no more (stupid) trains back to (stupid) Manchester tonight. I couldn't go and sing at the festival this weekend, and have been consoling myself with the idea that he was going to come back tonight so we could lie around in our pants watching the second season of Mad Men. Now he is not and I am forced to lie about by myself. Sulk.

The cat is sulking because I won't give him any more biscuits. He is not allowed any, he is meant to be on a diet. He's downstairs, muttering darkly to himself about "unrealistic expectations of body shape" and how he might just "go anorexic" to prove a point. I feel sorry for him, because he doesn't have a blog to moan at. (If he did it would probably be called 'Sometimes Disdain And Apathy Towards All Other Forms of Life is All I Have'.)

This week is a Big Week for me. Saturday is the culmination of the project I have been doing for the last year(ish) in Leeds with Opera North. I am excited and completely terrified, depending on how tired I am feeling at any given moment. I usually feel pretty confident about the whole thing when I am whooshing about on my bike (Glinda) (who I totally love), and then when I sit alone staring out of the window trying to ignore all the feline anger wafting up the stairs at me I begin to feel a bit jittery.

It's raining and warm. The roof tiles opposite are slick. I sat for a while leaning on the windowsill with my head out of the window, listening to the sounds of cars and sirens far away. I love looking out over the ginnel, peering into the back yards crammed together unevenly behind each terraced house. Most of them have bright weeds struggling defiantly from brick cracks, and off-white washing lines slicing across them at odd angles. I love the shock of the bright plastic pegs against the paving and the aching, rusty bricks. I have been watching with interest the progress of the naked Action Man, who came to our attention when he was splayed provocatively on a roof, unclothed and rakish, but who is now lying face down in a gutter. The chimneys are relics, withering and unused, but without them the scene would be incomplete.

On the sill of the back, downstairs window of the house opposite me are a pair of very small, brilliant-blue wellington boots. They are upside down. I imagine the wearer splashing about gleefully in puddles. I can hear the children next door, playing loudly, blissfully and unusually free from either parent screaming lashing recriminations.

I like the way the slate roofs are shining. I like the damp air and Sunday calm. The evening sun just awoke and hit a chimney pot, setting the red bricks aflame.

The cat is still silent and being aloof downstairs, but I have stopped feeling so sulky. I will perhaps concede and give him a few more biscuits. Maybe he will come upstairs and lie about with me until Ben gets home.