It's suddenly got very rainy here. Yesterday, last night and today it poured down, clattering on the tin roof of my warehouse home, in through some holes in the roof, gushing down the street like a river and turning front lawns into swamps. Everyone here thinks that England is rainy, but it's nothing compared to the downpours we have here. It's very annoying as we were hoping to pour our foundations on Monday or Tuesday, but it'll now have to wait until after Thanksgiving. Virtually everyone left on Friday for the holiday, so the Rural Studio is deserted.

Touring round with a visiting English friend to show him the sights of West Alabama, we trudged through puddles, red clay sticking to our feet And then the inevitable happened: my poor little frog-jeep got irretrievably stuck in a huge muddy rut out at Perry Lakes Park. And it doesn't have four-wheel drive. So we had to walk the mile and a half to the nearest house and beg to borrow a phone, and call the irreplaceable and long-suffering Johnny Parker to rescue us, dragging him away from one of the biggest football games of the season (Auburn-Alabama) to grumpily drag us out with his truck. I will be guilt-ridden for weeks, but luckily Auburn won. We made it to meet friends at the Shack just in time for the last minute of play.

Then later, it was out to Club 28 for more two-stepping to country music, pool and beer with the good white folk of Greensboro.