In a surreal moment I decided to write a poem about my Mum's old mixing bowl that I'm pretty sure is older than me. It's glass, with the initial JAJ on the bottom. Looks very Pyrex-y, but I think it probably predate Pyrex by a few years...

So here ya go...

Mum’s Mixing Bowl

A thousand scratches side by side

Meeting points like railway lines

Across the glass a tale to tell

Every line a different smell

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

Fingers sliding around the sides

Picking up the gritty prize –

Remnants left to my devour

Butter, sugar, eggs and flour

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

All at once, the garage floor

Drip, drip, drip and then to pour

The Mini’s oil, all spent and black

My mother’s face? A mirror cracked

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

Back to kitchen, lemons juiced with

Citric acid, heated through

To boiling point and then to cool

For lemonade to take to school

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

Then currants dropped in, raisins too

Cherries, almond flakes for you

Tinsel wrapped and tinned to keep

For Christmas, then ‘til Easter week

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

Forward thirty years and more

The bowl still holds and just keeps score

The owner gone, but left behind

This bowl with centre scratched and lined

Stirring, scratching, stir and grind

Bowl and food and tales entwined

A whole 11 days has passed since me last update and I'm sitting here not really knowing what to write...

Should I sing the praises of being bathed in sunshine for the past two weeks, or moan about the blue badge terrorists who've pitched so close to me I can only just open my door?

As far as the sunshine goes, I think it's pretty much the story for everyone. The only advantage I have is watching the sun drop into the sea. I don't think that'll happen today. I have the heating on at the moment as it is ridiculously windy out there and it's trying to rain too. I don't mind, to be honest - I quite like the sound of rain bouncing off the skylight. It reminds me of days in the conservatory on Plantation Rd, listening to the rain thunder onto the plastic roof, drinking hot ginger and peppermint cordial, eating cheese and onion crisps...

I'm sure it'll have a lot to do with all the upheaval of the past few months, but I've been having a lot of 'moving' dreams lately. No, smart arse, my dreams are not usually a series of black and white, cardboard cut-out vignettes. One of these dreams was in a house that I didn't recognise, but Ma and Pa were there. We were all packing the house up, but every time I went back into my room, everything was unpacked again. Another dream had my friend Kate's mum Pamela-June packing up Netherwood, except Netherwood had a huge lake outside and Kate was jet-skiing on it. Weird, weird, weird...

Still on the subject of moving, I remember the first time my family moved house from 72, to 97, Blaen-y-Pant Crescent. Yes, Blaen-y-Pant. I believe it means 'top end of the valley' in my national tongue. Number 72 was the last house before the bushes and hedges that surrounded Blaen-y-Pant House - the childhood home of Desmond Llewelyn, the chap who played gadget man Q in most of the Bond films. I don't know if it still was a private house when I lived next door to it, but we used to play in the garden. Tisty tosty fights were the usual game. Pine cones, in case you're wondering. We used to chuck them at each other. The place is a nursing home now.

Anyway, we moved from a semi on one side of the road, to a house my Dad helped to design and build on the bank of the canal on the other. I vividly remember all the furniture and stuff being carried from one house to the other. It was one of those weird houses that was on a steep bank - from the front it looked like a bungalow. Inside, all the bedrooms were on the ground floor, the living areas 'upstairs' and a garden that ran along the canal bank for about 50 yards. Yes, I fell in plenty of times...

And that was Wales, really. Left there for Harrogate in 1973. We lived in a flat while we were waiting for Southway to be carpeted etc and the only thing I remember about the flat was that it had a rubbish chute. Tell you what, I was utterly obsessed by it and I'm surprised I didn't end up taking a trip down it...

Right, that's enough reminiscing.

The blue badge terrorists can wait until a later edition...

Over and out

Bring me sunshine...

Well, to be honest with you, I'd settle for a little creative boost. Sunshine is certainly not in short supply here. I already have the kind of tan people might expect a Mediterranean holidaymaker to have. But then I is a Ginger, init, so all I need to do is look at one of those sunshine symbols on the weather forecast and I get sunstroke.

Just had two days with Toby and Alan who were on a whistle-stop tour of the highlands. Did a couple of walks, ate fantastic food, got a bit pissed. Ahh, it were right nice - especially as it was my birthday on the 27/4.

Just watched a bit of the wedding this morning - cardinal sin, putting the TV on before teatime, but I suppose it was a valid excuse...

I was pondering levels of personal security the other day. Strange how when we live in houses, we think of ourselves as virtually unassailable; safe in our little castles, all locked up and secure. I noticed that when I first started living in the van, my sense of personal security was heightened. Over the weeks, this has dropped, but I still have to do the old 'lock routine' to make sure the van's secure while I'm away from it. I shouldn't be surprised. On one occasion when I was living on Plantation Rd, I actually drove back from the end of the road just to make sure I'd locked the front door. Old habits. Why, though, should I feel any less secure in a big old love bus than in a house?

Had a strange day just before my birthday. I was overcome by a terrible yearning to talk to my folks. I wanted to ring them and tell them where I was, what I was up to, talk to Dad about music, tell Mum there was an EWM in Ullapool, so she could go shopping! An awful feeling really - when you really want to do something but there is absolutely no way it could ever physically happen. I'm sure it will have a bit to do with the approaching period of isolation. Not that I'll be away from civilisation, just missing me mates I suppose...

Well, I think I'll bring this cheery blog to a close!

At least it was some writing practice - even if it was to skate across my psyche!

Over and out.

Actually in Scotland!

Well, after much deliberation, brain-aching and general malaise, I am finally over the border!

Okay, I've only made it to Dollar so far (it's in Clackmannanshire, near Stirling, which is in Stirlingshire. Are you following this?) but I'm on me bloody way.

This is Robin and Julie's lovely cottage in Dollar complete with - and you may want to sit down before looking to the top left of the photo - blue sky. That's right, blue sky. There's quite a lot of blue sky in Scotland, but don't tell everyone or they will all be up here. Bloody sassenachs!

As you'll know, I've come up to Scotland to get away from it all and somehow sew together all the crazy ideas, lines and concepts in my head. What will come out at the end will either be a few well-crafted short stories, a play or two and an autobiography, or a complete load of mentalism that would get me an express, access-no-areas pass into Rampton, or some other secure institution.

My intention was not to start writing until I was settled in one place. The very idea that I could control my creativity, turning it on and off at will, is akin to shrieking that the Earth is flat until your eyes bleed. So, with a hoarse voice and gently mopped, slightly bloodshot eyes I offer you my blog - a tattered mishmash of random thoughts and rants.

Talking of rants - why is it that groups of schoolgirls have to randomly scream as if they are being attacked by a shark while popping to the bakery? Just near Rob and Julie's house is Dollar Academy - one of Scotland's finest private schools. So naturally, of a lunchtime, gangs of pupils maraud around the village centre, trying to buy Red Bull and 10 Marlborough Lights from the Co-op. The lads just hang around in moody-looking groups, all strung out on their 'Kevin and Perry' ideals. But the girls? Jesus H Christ in a canoe, all they do is flit about like demented gazelles, wildly stabbing at their mobile phones, shrieking every time they get a text message which will no doubt be about either some lad in the Lower Sixth Form, or Justin Bieber: omg! JB is bamf lol cu l8r bff.

What? Put them all in the Grasmere Bin*

Ooh, that's better. There's nothing like a good old moan and I just love the way that my MacBook Pro agrees with everything I say. The world needs to catch up...

Over and out.

*Grasmere Bin: I did the Coast to Coast walk a few years back and stopped a while in Grasmere in the Lake District. So full was it of chocolate box houses, cutesy Wordsworth-themed cafes and tourists, that I just wanted to drop a Daisy Cutter on it...

A quick heads up...

I've been writing professionally for about 20 years I guess. Mainly about TV, or in it. From the BBC to Big Brother, I've written about some of the weirdest things ever chucked through a screen. I can't think of some of the things that have been chucked at screens as a result. Shit, shoes, jam...

However, no-one needs to tell you how cathartic writing is. And when it comes from the centre of your soul, there is no sweeter feeling. Well, there's a few similar feelings, but they're mostly illegal. Anyway, goats are more expensive these days...

So, with a fistful of dollars I had a decision to make. Give in to the 'bricks and mortar' brigade who insist I invest all my money in another house, or buy a camper van and head north for a few years and try write some stuff. Well, when I say camper van, I'm talking about a 30 feet, six-berth behemoth with underfloor heating and a steam room. Listen, if I'm living in a tin box for a few years, I ain't skimpin on nothing!

The idea is to get myself away from temptation and free myself of worry about bills, rent, all that bollocks, ya know?

When it came to where to head for first, I didn't have to think too long. I love Orkney and I will end up there one day, but this place - well, it's just beautiful. Even if I only spend three months there...

A couple of years back, I decided to drive from Ullapool all the way around the north coast of Scotland. The small place I headed for was Durness - a village not far from Cape Wrath, almost as far north as you can get. Found a great place to pitch my tent on a cliff top, overlooking a beach. Bliss. In fact, it was in another blog I posted on here.

http://tinyurl.com/6erj37k

So, wandering around the new place - as you do - I saw a sign directing me to the John Lennon Memorial Garden. I was a bit gobsmacked. What on Earth did John Lennon have to do with this place?

It turns out that when he was a kid, he came here on his holidays, and that the song In My Life was about all the people he met there over the times he went there. I'm not there yet, so I can't pass judgement on the locals, but I remember it being a quiet place. Mmmm...

So, there you go. A potted history and the reason why the blog is called In My Life.

Oh, and the 'speaker dusting'? If you see Julie, ask her...