Hearing undoubtedly impaired but I make various critical sonic judgements anyway and try not to let on. Walk the short and sunny walk to ARC and deliver the finished masters - feel quite proud, all in all; music, video and artwork will all be ready by the time we get back. Been fucking busy, though. Made me ill.

Nonetheless go back into town, buy some strings, guitar stands, floor-tom legs (where the Christ is the hardware????) and strange money for use in foreign lands. It's hot.

Finally arrive, pale and sweaty at Matt's where Matts and Kerry are having a final rehearsal before our adventure begins. Kind of like the idea of having a girl bassist. Especially this one. Rehearse until the neighbours complain and then rehearse very quietly.

I guess we're as ready as we'll ever be.

2nd-7th June:
Switzerland.

Friday 11th June:
At long last Stephen is a father - he and Debbie are now the proud owners of a little Hallum. As I said, how extraordinary.

Tuesday 15th June:
Carl calls to say that he has finished the video and we can go and see it. Go for a haircut first though, thank god. Meet MVB in town and go up to be presented with Carl's work. He says he's really pleased with it. It's not really what I was expecting… somehow very 80's. And there is an almost embarrassing number of shots of me, especially as there are so very few of MVB and Stephen. But for the most part you get two and a half minutes of a pretty young waiter (or Kung Fu expert) shouting at you. It's hard to ignore, that much is true. God knows how you're supposed to react to these things.

Wednesday 16th June:
I keep thinking it's Thursday today, for no good reason. Few hours to kill so go to kill them at studio. Aim to record guitars but am initially waylaid by need to tidy vocal booth/store room (necessary for removing amplifier anyway). Do more chunky guitar on Give my heart. Doesn't sound very different from Leslie guitar, but maybe the blend will be new and intriguing. Too many tracks going on on Sundial already so move a few onto computer to make room for another more nasty guitar track. Energy slump swiftly corrected by ingestion of Red Bull. Do not expect to sleep tonight. Can't really hear new guitar for all the other guitar but it usually makes sense in mix. Brain gone now anyway.

Tuesday 22nd June:
Go to ARC to deliver the finished artwork which Matt picked up last night. They've got the master of the video now and are getting copies, so I guess we've done our job. Should get the finished product in about a week.

In the meantime, better start sorting out single number two. And a video and some photos and a design …

Thursday 17th June:
Go for a "meeting" (dinner) with Brian and Geri. They are delighted with the video. They reckon it will take a week to manufacture some records once the artwork is ready, and as soon as they've got them Geri will start the process of hawking it round all the TV and radio people. Since it'll be July virtually by then, the tentative release date is the middle of August to give us six weeks of promotion. This is a month later than we first planned but it's not too bad, and considering how much there was to do it's understandable. If there are any delays it won't be our fault.

Wednesday 23rd June:
Up nice and early for we are doing some drums today, but not where the music lives for a change, but where Matt lives. We have already discovered that the little booth is too small to record the kit very seriously, which means we shall have to try the main room which in turn means that we'll have to move the rest of the stuff as far away as possible. It is a simple but essential fact that if you want to have any control over what sounds go to tape, you have to be able to hear that louder than the sound of the drums in the next room. If it weren't for this, recording would be a more simple process. Anyway, relocate to the hall, just by the front door where we can indeed discern microphone sounds from coming-through-the-walls sound and plug everything in for the millionth time. Matt explains idea he has for the intro to Sundial and how come it includes little tuning-in-radio section like "Mr Blue Sky". Express fear, not welcomed.

MVB arrives, very chipper and soon we are ready to begin recording takes on the gorgeous I thought you'd never ask. The Matts have cooked up a crazy plan for cutting in an entirely different (and double-tracked) drum sound in the verse. This means getting three usable takes, but MVB is up for it and that helps. We get a very Ringo sound for the double-tracked section which is always good, and Matt manages to replicate the part with only the occasional two-different-fills-at-once. We listen to them all together and shrug a lot and say "well, we've done it now". We've certainly got a lot of choices when it comes to mixing.

Fool about with last week's nasty Sundial guitar track, sampling it and making even more nasty. It's so nasty that I have to go through it and cut out all the amp noise from where I'm not playing because it's incredibly loud and sounds like someone's driving a tractor nearby. Try it in with the rest of the track. Sounds like someone's driving a tractor nearby. But in a good way.

Thursday 24th June:
Today we took a little trip to the realm where genius touches madness, and (more importantly) beauty touches tastelessness. We've been talking about making Sundial as remarkable as possible - it's never going to be a great song, but it could be a great record.

First of all we recorded a few tracks of theremin because I was feeling guilty that it has been lying under my bed since the last album. I thought it might be good to do a high part that had previously been backing vocals with it. For the hell of it, you know. The theremin is a virtually unplayable instrument so what we recorded will require heavy editing.

Then we set up a mic and recorded thousands of vocals on the big "Sundial" section and then yet more vocals on the following "bike" bit, in case we want to make it a cappella at that moment. It's just a shame that we sound less like the Beach Boys and more like Yes.

I wonder how much of today's work will end up on the final thing. Lucky there was no one else around or they'd have rolled their eyes.

Tuesday 29th June:
Reckon it must be exactly a mile and a quarter to Matt's house, or 'the studio' - really should think of a snappy name for it, like the Rolling Stones' mobile recording studio which is called 'The Rolling Stones Mobile Recording Studio'. Fortunately Chris is away and so I can use his bike as long as I can also wear an anorak as it is pissing down, and yet terribly warm.

We're doing two days of drums so we can leave everything set up once we have once again moved everything (to just in front of the front door for added convenience).

Approximate the Whirler drum sound for Time is the enemy (one of my favourite songs but just a b-side) with a boomy bass drum and crackety snare. This no-pressure home environment is obviously good for MVB - the takes are always really in the groove and it's just a case of getting all the extra bits in. I guess we've all been improving over the last eight years. Well, you'd hope so.

Finish before five so as not to frighten neighbours and ride home in anorak. Still wet. Brakes not work.

If you lie in the road, you're going to get hit.

Wednesday 30th June:
The distance to the RUTHMobile and the lack of direct buses is really impeding my appetite for recording. Lie in bed struggling with temptation … the temptation to stay there, you understand, not temptation in the biblical sense.

Risk my life on bike again - can hear the sound of drum takes calling me from the road before. MVB already stuck into Got to tell her, just one of the many super 60's tunes we're doing. Watch tennis, eat biscuits.

Move on to Thinking it over, a strange song. Haggle over tempo and do a take in sections. Love all the spidery, scrabbly fills. As five o'clock draws near we decide to stop and plan to make up the drum track by sampling the best bits, cos that's the kind of thing we fancy doing now that we have the technology. We'll do that later, though. Put house back together, ride home sans anorak this time.

It's good for your calves, they say.