A glut of fruit, especially apples, has me thinking about making jam. I think probably I’ll make apple and damson and apple and ginger: I have sufficient fruit to make quite a lot of it, some to give away, most to see us through winter. I went out earlier to find preserving sugar, which I’d heard was in short supply. I did find some, but not as much as I remember seeing on the shelves in previous years.

Most of the rest of my day was spent doing an initial pass through the rough draft of that story. I haven’t finished yet, but my initial impression is that, because I revise a lot as I go along, the first three quarters or so of the text didn’t need as much doing to it as I feared might be the case. The latter part of the book, that I wrote very quickly, is most in need of work. On the whole, though, I’m quite happy with how it’s looking for the stage it’s at.

Having said that, reading Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi makes me want to chop my typing fingers off and find something better to do with my time.

***

Music: this was released fifty years ago next week. For a long time I had it on a cassette recorded for me by Jill Breingan at school. It was Jill who also taped Pretzel Logic and Countdown to Ecstacy for me. Home taping is killing music, kids.