I’ve been going out drawing most mornings this week so haven’t had a chance to write this. Things that I want to write about or mention or just remember then begin to stack up and what ought to be a lyrical, spontaneous musing becomes more like list. Here goes:
- The man who stopped me on the Prom the other morning at 4 am asking if I’d seen the fires. He had a jumper or some such thing tied around his head and was carrying a whole honeydew melon.
- Looking at the scan of my body on the consultant’s screen at the hospital and marvelling at my little form up there, seeing my ovaries, my genitals, my ribs and watching the flow of arteries from my aorta. Fascinating and more than a little surreal. Is that me? I kept wanting to ask. And the best of all bests? No more tests. Shall we just leave it then? I asked him. Yes, he said. Good, I said.
- The Pelican Bakery is shutting. It shut yesterday. The baker wants to spend more time with his family. I’m sad. I love the smell in the mornings. Now our ugly (very shabby at the moment) little town is sans bakeries.
- The man the ex-butcher referred to as ‘Cock’ has died. It was rectal cancer apparently. And the house he was building for his in-laws is not yet finished. I am sorry. And then thinking about him as I passed his home a huge lorry came round the corner (a great shining silver thing) with his name blazoned across the top (well with an added s to be exact). A nice bit of synchronicity. Rest in peace.
- A man was standing opposite the 24hr SPAR having clearly spent the night sleeping in the doorway of Barnado’s. He was shouting. It wasn’t at me. He held a bottle in his hand. He had a Irish brogue. He shouted that someone was a traitor. Did he say Jesus?
