Dear Petra

It is slow work. I sit with the model on my lap sanding down the rough edges. I want this one to be the best yet. On the table to one side is a professionally made vinyl figure. It has smooth surfaces, I look at it from time to time, I want to make something as crisp and symmetrical as this. I tell my self its only patience and time, if I run out of either of these, then I'll slack and settle for second best.

In between the evenings, there are the days working, and travelling on tube trains. I'm at my lowest walking through tunnels. On the way home changing trains at Euston the escalator is broken and I have to walk down a circular stair case. Half way down a fat drunk man balances on a step, he looks as if he will tip over at any moment and roll backwards down the stairs. He is always there, and it is hard to duck past him, people move quickly down the stairs, everyone wants to get home.

I suppose the stairs are his secret place, where he can have a drink and the guards won't find him.

The last couple of nights I've worked on music. I seem to swing from extremes. Its a year since I finished my CD and I've hardly done anything musical in that time. When I'm working on music I forget everything. I reason that this might be why I've been so miserable this last year.

As I work on my model, we watch the TV, watch the state of the world. When I was younger I wouldn't have let it upset me, I was full of life , the future was unknown and there were adventures to be had. I'm not sure what there is now.

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"Down at the Paint-in"

Dear Nessi

The backroom of a pub. Tables covered in white paper. Pots of bright acrylic paint on the tables, like its a nursery school class. Only its an avant guard free jazz club and no one will be under age 30. Most are nearing 50. The seats fill up annoyingly fast; I am stuck behind an upright piano which I use as an easel.

Power Pack thinks this is the best night he's ever had. Beer, fags, free jazz and paint. What more could he want? And somehow, while the rest of us struggle with paint straight from the pots, muddying on canvases in the poor light (I even brought a torch), while we struggle, Power skillfully mixes colours and produces, in about an hour, a great painting. I'm not saying that just cos he's my husband. It was the perfect setting for him.

On the other hand, I found it hard to paint a fair size canvas in such a short time. At least it was something to do while the trumpets, violins, percussion and digital clarinets were doing their thing. I am bored to tears with the blip, beep, bam jazz that Power Pack loves.

Mr Flea's beautiful young girlfriend painted a nude woman in thigh boots - "That’s the sign of a sexual satisfied woman," someone said, and Mr Flea blushed. He was painting his usual dark, monochrome self portraits, old men with wings hanging over bottles of whiskey, and sinister dogs on street corners. I painted Mr Flea's chick painting her rude picture. And Power Pack's masterpiece was a man slipping over on a cucumber. It showed only his head, surrounded by various vegetables. The Scuba Diver painted some kind of Hell's Angel's logo. And Miss Chaos just sat and watched.

And then there was soup. The host, wearing a cabbage tea cosy on his head, served up vegan spicy lentil and soya milk soup.

The room was full of people we didn't know, who were also painting. It was quite incredible, really, a room full of near middle aged folk all dabbling at canvases in unison.

As is usual for the free jazz club, the host, Mr Cabbage-Hat, played some of his super 8 films. This time they were of the anti-war march. More free jazz accompanied the jiggling, often reversed pictures, which captured in a very 60s amatuer filmaker way, a day that we will all remember for a very long time.

"No more rock scene!" Power Pack announced gleefully on the way home. A week after the Succulent Singles split up, he's got 3 solo gigs lined up already - and none on any rock circuit. Poetry at the gallery, the free jazz place and Riley's, supporting Mr Flea (I have a strange idea Mr Flea might have asked Power Pack to play cos I will make a flyer. Know he likes Power Pack, but still...)

On the long walk home we saw a fox - the first this year. Spring is on its way.

Petra