For two months I will stay here in New Jersey visiting some friends in a beautiful house on stilts. Half of it is empty, the windows without glass. Out of one window I can see the rest of the town - unusual buildings with second floors that seem to hover in the air. They are in fact fixed by metal brackets to a huge white wall surrounding everything. I like the design - the rest of the town I am unsure of - everything seems too perfect.
The weather is mild. I am walking in a muddy field I think in Balham except there is no housing. In front is an old swimming pool- outdoor- or at least it is now. A man walks down into it on steps concealed by the thick mud. I follow him. The pool seems too shallow to swim in. I am not sure I want to get in. I climb back out again.
I find out that my home is built on a vast net of wellington boots, camouflaged to appear like a craggy cliff. My partner lives here with me in the middle of a landfill site by the sea - he is a hybrid conjured up from (long dead) Kev and a couple of other unrequited loves. He munches on a chocolate donut made from wellies. Parallel to us hangs another fake cliff. This is all we can afford. I know we should move - it's all far too precarious. Having said that, we have made this our home and it's the best we could improvise from what is an imperfect situation.
Our book is almost finished. I cycle along the roads of a country like Switzerland pleased with the results. Every now and then I turn off into a side road leading to a little square. There are still a few sections that need to be edited here and there.
Sal and I are visiting Richard Briers in his old house on an island, but the route is treacherous. I climb steep rocky steps and squeeze through a tiny window feet first pulling myself up into an odd metal contraption where I am held Houdini style. Now I am hopping from rock to rock across the island. At one point I am in a bed in an open wing of the house. The bed sits at the edge of the shore. I am told that if I sleep here at full moon all kinds of birds will appear and swim around me. It's a lovely image although I am a bit nervous the tide will rise and the bed will be swept away. I am assured there is no problem.
Stacey from Eastenders and I are working on our dreams. She is not that interested. We journey together on the underground, through festival crowds, now manoevering out of a high window into a busy crater. Stacey gets me to lower her and her pram first, but how am I supposed to get down? "Look," she says , "if we do this a few times they throw money at us." I am unimpressed but jump down onto a plastic water wheel. Then I'm up to my waist in thick mud while everyone else seems to be getting through fine. And I've lost my bag with my camcorder. "If we get enough money to buy this place, Stace, the first thing I am going to do is put in some stairs!...That's the punchline," I add.
I am staying over in Tor's grand old English farm set in hilly terrain. The sun is shining and it is a beautiful summer's day. A school party of primary kids are descending the hill. We hear a big crash from the courtyard and go to investigate. The snow has melted and slid off the roof flooding the yard. Bulbous icicles hang from the trees. You'll have to go round the back, I tell them, its too dangerous here.
Travelling along a mountainous road I am now about to turn a corner. I am at the end of a stage of work. There are celebrations. I look back at art I produced years ago scarcely remembering any of it. Was any of it really mine?(I have been in Carrick for just over two months working on my dream diary and collecting other peoples' dreams. Tomorrow I leave for a conference on dreams in Lincoln.)
We start in an English gentlemen's outfitters where all the upper crust men are wearing 1920's suits, climb up to the top floor, stumbling over an antique obstacle course to more modern exclusive menswear. From there through back streets of Talinn and Dubrovnik, on to a vast crater. There I nervously lie on my front and gaze over the edge at two boys somersaulting down at an alarming rate. The crater shrinks until it is just 10 metres across and tourists are invited to roll their own pasta croissants down its floury slopes.
A friend and I are on a massive sailing contraption, hurtling towards the Thames barrier. It slows down just at the last minute and then swings round heading back so fast that the scenery disappears into a blur. The speed is exhilerating. When we come to a stop I calculate that we covered a mile every 1.25 seconds. A passenger from a previous ride is being hoisted by a body harness having broken his leg from the pressure.
As we travel further into the wilds of America the Slavic language spoken in the area sounds more alien. No-one is going to speak English here - we need a phrase book to get by. Our hybrid bus-train drops us off at a motel. Inside I wander down the usual narrow corridors. I try greeting the proprietor in Polish, because that's the most eastern language I know a few words of. I realise I needn't have bothered - on the doors everything is in German and English.
I am flying through a strange underground network of old tunnels, aware that I am inventing the space as I go. The sensation is like swimming underwater without the difficulty breathing, and I find I am quite good at it. Gliding round a corner I grab a rock from the crumbling brickwork and hurl it at a corpse covered by a tarpaulin far below me.
I am in Venice (in Spain) for three days with C. He stays outside in the hills but I am keen to visit the galleries. The pictures I look at are gorgeous: sparkling mosaics of religious scenes dripping with blood and set against refined architectural detail. C will be mad to have missed this stuff. I am upset when I somehow realise that I am only looking at reproductions in artbooks and that I do not actually have the time to see the work in the flesh.
I am alarmed to find my garden transformed into rows of raised beds built out of brick and slate. Wild seashore plants have been set in the soil, the kind of plants that Derek Jarman would find for his garden in Dungeness. Tony tells me that our new neighbour Steve had apparently decided to dig it over. He had no right to. So is this how it is going to be from now on? When I wake I have a strong sense that this situation is familiar and strangely invigorating.
I have travelled alone to meet up with the family in the Alps. I am aware that I am at a very high altitude. The snow is sparse, not at all like the photos I have seen. Somehow I feel cheated and uncomfortable. Why have I come here?
Dad has brought me to an incredible restaurant where the innovative chef is also the architect. I am appalled when the fish served up is still breathing. The chef shrugs it off - the food here is so fresh it is often eaten at the point of transition from life to death.Outside I notice the scenery has shifted, we are no longer looking out over eighteenth century town houses but at a long shiny black road. I realise it is the restaurant itself that is rotating. The effect is magical and unexpected - constructed like a modernist medieval banqueting hall, the building is in fact one huge cylinder. I feel intensely alive here.
I am on top of the roof of an immense house sorting out its website. Through the chimneys I can see an idyllic harbour scene - looks like somewhere in the South of France. I'm not supposed to be out here and know I will have to climb back into the building through the small casement window.
Am I near Paris or somewhere in South America? I was alone but have met up with a group of students in front of a massive spiral structure carved into a mountain. Two young male students don't want to climb up. "Start shouting OW!" the handsomest says to me. I do as he asks and he picks me up in his arms and carries me as if I am injured. This way he avoids going up the hill.It is thrilling to be carried by him but it makes me feel like an old man.
Acres of freshly ploughed earth stretch before me. I just need to stand back and let Nature take her course. Why do I doubt it? Why can't I believe that something will come from nothing? I can't force anything. I can only wait.
.
