It was an unexpected joy. For they are utterly joyous. The way in which they curve into an arc as they fly out of the water is quite marvellous. We were all enraptured. For people had gathered, stopping their cars and rolling down windows, or leaning over the Promenade railing, or rushing onto the beach cameras and phones in hand. Some were even on the water, paddling or standing on surf boards. I felt lifted and stopped still. Thank you.
What are you doing? People kept asking me questions. I felt a little invaded. First it was the lad who we’d see in Caffe Nero on Wednesday, whom I’d tried to draw. What are you working on? he asked. I’d been drawing in the harbour and he’d made his way down from the house he’d been working in to ask me that question. A nice lad. A pleasant open face. I didn’t take offence. He was genuinely interested. Unlike the landowner (‘I own several properties around here’) who interrupted my drawing of the digger outside his derelict property with its sparkling white fence to ask me what I was doing. Apparently his tenant (he has a tenant in that ramshackle house – I thought I’d seen a light on some mornings) who had ‘bad Asperger’s) had seen a masked and hooded figure looking suspicious. I showed him my drawings (not a flicker) and said I was only interested in the machinery.
My drawing goes up and down. I can feel when it is slipping from me and when I make back compositional decisions. It all goes in the bank, he says.
The sun is trying to come out, though a liquidy cloud persists. The cleaning is done for today.
She had Covid-19. Her daughter rang me to tell me she was going into hospital. She has it too and with a young babe to care for. Poor loves. How helpless we are with other people’s pain.
