Brilliant day. Beautiful. Spent most of my day out in the garden with Charlotte, heavily pregnant and not able to take the stairs without a five-minute build-up beforehand - and also Poppy, who managed to rip the yellow tail entirely off the cat-baiting stick she lvoes to play with. Guess she wins. Baby due any day now. Man. The tension - although mostly unspoken - is incredible. We both know our lives will change forever but it’s still almost impossible to envisage. Man.

A few weeks back now, played an improvised set entirely based around the teachings we’ve recieved in ante-natal class: breathe, breathe, breathe…rise, peak, plateau, drop…breathe, breathe, breathe…there’s nothing to be afraid of, it’s perfectly normal, those strange feelings you have are only chemicals messing with your mind…as Steve Gullick and Danya and Scout Niblett played heartbeat guitar and feedback, and Sam from The Go! Team free-formed amazingly on drums. Steve has a mini-disc somewhere. Love to hear it. Stevie Chick was there also, still the nicest man on earth: and Scout played a blinder herself with the new drummer. Electrelane were pretty fucking on fire as well.

Great venue, that Old Market.

Played a few other shows too: a week back at Monster Bobby’s Totally Bored club at The Fringe Bar, Kensington Gardens - a little piece of Olympia come to Brighton - impromptu, with Chris La Momo providing two-chord acoustic, in support to the very cute and naive and magical Dennis Driscoll, who stole the hearts of all 10 people present but fortunately gave them straight back afterwards. I told how my fave criticism of me I’ve spotted on the web is, “Like seeing your best friend’s embarrassing dad drunk in charge of a karaoke book” and…well, it was a sweet evening. Metronomy charmed as well. As did Alex from Thee Moths between-songs asides. Bobby wasn’t there. Too busy being a pop star.

Charlotte looks amazing right now. The shape formed by the baby is an almost perfect half-circle and you can actually see the child wriggle around inside her. I haven’t been giving her massages like I promised, but I have been trying to make her feel loved.

…Then there was Colchester Arts Centre on Wednesday: what a cool place, converted church and graveyard next door, my 44-year-old ass totally kicked by two local(ish)15-year-old boys calling themselves Revchild who went on before and - despite liking the Libertines - played a music that was similar to Beat Happening and (Mick Collins claimed) Eyeless In Gaza, although they only had guitar and drums. They rocked, real hard. Serious. Dirtbombs were their usual rockin’ selves (genius in other words) and my mood was only lifted even higher by the appearance of two of my old mates from my ‘dancing down the fron’t days in the early 80s. So we all danced together and Mick even dedicated a song to ‘that crazy man there’. Me.

The Legend! was fine too: Eva playing glockenspiel and Ben Blackwell on rampant drums. Guess I need to play to the crowd more, perhaps.

Monday, or was it Tuesday? Andrew, Frances me and Charlotte saw Star Wars and…well, it’s a damn sight better than the previous two isn’t it? Indeed, it could even be the best of the entire six (the cynic in me points out that’s not exactly difficult). We were out, celebrating the finish of ANOTHER Plan B…man that cover kicks ass, as does Frances’ ESG feature and David - sorry, Petra’s - Antony And The Johnsons article. And you gotta love those geeks reviewing the vinyl toys in the back.

Spent most of today replying to far-gone emails, and now it’s time for, wait!…breathe, relax, breathe, relax, breathe, relax….
Man. Not long to go now.