Author: Ellen Bell

Strange, sometimes exotic, smells drift into my bedroom through the open window at night. This morning it was the odour of smoky bacon crisps. It wasn’t bacon but an essence of it. Where it was coming from I didn’t know.

Our downstairs neighbour was at his window smoking when I went for my walk. I asked him if he’d managed to return to his quiz nights. He said no, but that he had gone to the pub for a drink. Scholars? I asked. Yes, he said, before going on to tell me that there is a new manager there, the old one having gone a ‘bit mad’ had been found wandering naked on the Prom. Poor man. Why does ‘madness’ always seem to inspire the shedding of clothes?

I finished it after about two years in the making. There is always an anti-climax. An ‘is that it?’ kind of feeling. I need to put it away and think about it. Where next?

Another wet morning. I try to be sanguine when I am out in it. It isn’t personal after all. The wind rattled at my umbrella. I should’ve put it down, and just bore it, but one gets so saturated.

No answer, so the work, for now is suspended.

There is a white light over the sea, might the clouds be clearing?

It rained again but I was more prepared. (My shoes are sodden from yesterday’s downpour so I had to walk in my heavy boots.) And my umbrella held. I walked up through the castle park just in time to see two seagulls made luminous in the sky by the lamplight beneath. The dog roses have taken a battering, the petals lie in pieces on the ground. The scent, like the perfume I used to make as a child (all brown in used jam jars), was still heady in the morning-coming-dark.

I slowed my step to admire the scabiouses in ER’s front garden on Llanbadarn Road when I was momentarily alarmed by a squawk from a frightened baby seagull scurrying out and flapping from behind a wheelie bin.

We sat out yesterday afternoon, though the sun didn’t come. He called out crossword clues while I watched an approaching kite, majestic in its glide and hover. And they used to be so rare.

I read about pockets when he went in. What a glorious book. I was hungry for all it gave me. And I thought as I read and poured over the images, that I almost always have to make facsimiles of things that please or excite me (often out of contrary materials). And that by that process I come to understand and know them. It is hard to rationalise such a procedure. It doesn’t matter why, he says. If it gives you pleasure just do it.

There’s only a thirty per cent chance of rain, he told me last night (we always do a weather report in the evening so I know what to wear for my early morning walk). It had rained when I first woke but it had stopped by the time I left the house. This is nice, I thought as I walked. The wind was quite gusty (what the BBC call moderate) but not unpleasant. I was thankful for the dry and was just putting my hood up against the wind when it started. I was down by the harbour. And it was if someone had just got a huge bucket and emptied it. And kept on doing so. Down and down it came. It went into my shoes, through the side of my hood, saturating my gloves and waterproofs. I wanted to rise above it (and think of those poor loves in Canada with their sweltering temperatures and freak fires) – concentrating on the smells of the sea, the fact that, as yet, I wasn’t actually cold and so on. But I failed. I got cross. Cross with the weather forecasters, with him for being so sanguine (it won’t rain) and my shoes for letting the rain in. I squelched along doing most of my walk and got home sodden. Then there is the stripping off at the front door, the hanging of wet things in the bathroom and the knowledge that drying out my shoes will take days. But. And there is always a but. I did see something that gave me a fillip of joy. It was semi-dark when I first caught sight of him. And I couldn’t quite work out what it was. A four-legged creature, with a rounded back. A rat? No, there was no tail and he was too dum-di-dum for a rodent. He’d come up the path to the side of the bowling green and was crossing the pavement. He must’ve heard me for he stopped to listen. I stood still and realised what it was. A hedgehog. He resumed his trek and headed under a parked car. It did lift me. It was an expected encounter, something beyond, something magical, I think. A quiet, shy being crossing my path.

They promise a better day. We shall see.

I didn’t see him. I just knew that he was there behind the closed door and about to open it. I screamed but couldn’t produce a sound. I tried again and again to call out and woke myself from it.

And now, it is OK. I can breathe.

My skin is thin, you see.

She told me that a rabbit has been getting into her garden and taken all her runner beans. She referred to it as a she. I heard her new grandchild in the background, laughing and then grisling. She is sanguine about the rabbit, though the fate of their beetroot isn’t looking good either. Her voice is lighter, brighter. She sounds happy.

I love it when the sea is flat. I mean there are waves, of a sort, but there is no churning, no agitation, just a gentleness of moving. I didn’t walk for long, having been held up at home with domestic stuff. Who else changes sheets at 2.30 am in the morning? Does anyone? I like to get it done. To clear the decks for proper work.

The flies were back. And there were no new opened buds to cut.

She wants to see a photo. I’ve told her she has to be patient. And then he comes in and says – go one send her one. No. I must hold fast. It is better this way.

I’ve much to do. And the sun is out. Will it stay?

It is. It is small, this life, this life of mine. And sometimes, well mostly these days, I am happy for it to be so. It is enough. Dealing with the day to day business of my head is enough. And all the work that waits to be made. And the work too, is small. Today it is down to stitches. Tiny, small stitches that I have to unpick.

I put the coffee grounds we’d picked up on our trip to Bath under the sweet peas and geraniums, removing some of the weeds that have gathered there. I was nice to get the warmth soil under my nails. It was a connection, a slow thing that gave me a frisson of joy. And the coffee, warmed by the air smells gorgeous. And seems to be keeping the flies at bay.

There was a wasp. Yesterday as I sat outside reading, a wasp kept landing on me. Perhaps it smelt the coconut body butter I’d put on that morning. I tried to keep still and let it sniff and land and buzz. As I child I would’ve screamed or ran. Now I can let it be. Though I wouldn’t want it to sting. I let it be and watch with wonder that such a creature wants to engage with me. Does it think me a flower or a piece of fruit? What sense does it make of me? No threat, clearly.

The sun may come. I hope it does.

I read the letter and was thrown by a description of a 58 year old lady before realising that they were describing me. So curt. Agh. I’m glad to be out of it.

It was coming from the sea. It looked eerie. There was barely a wave on the water itself. It lapped but there was no roar, no crash, just an awesome stillness, a heaviness of mist and dew. I liked it, though it was unexpected. Every morning is different. I am often in a state of wonder as I walk, though I know the paths I take so well, I have walked them time and time again. There were fewer people about, just the one house, behind the Prom lit up and booming a little with music. The students are leaving like migrating birds.

The house on the hill behind Alexandra Hall, the one that was sold and bought recently is in the process of being done up. I’ve watched its progress when I’ve walked past – its lights often left on. It’s a small two up two down but there is a nice blackened fire place in the front room. In the stair well there is also a glass lamp shade in the shape of a star. Today I noticed that they have painted the outside of the house blue. How lovely it is to see a building being cared out, so many here need some love and attention.

I cut some more sweet peas this morning and put them in my great aunt’s cup on the breakfast table. And now the sun is coming out.

I’ve taken to staying on outside to read when he goes in (for a kip invariably). I love it. Mostly it is quiet, except for the occasional keening of a distant strimmer. Yesterday a woman turned up, that is, she walked into the rapeseed wilderness ahead of me. I’ve seen her before. She looks a little distracted. She is elderly with clothes that are a little big for her. I watched as she walked in the yellow and disappeared. Is she OK? Yes, I can see her head. Then she appeared to stand, quite still, for a time. Was she praying, meditating or just thinking? She walks with a slight lean, slowly and methodically. I didn’t raise my head when she walked past me on her return, wanting to preserve her privacy and mine.

I thought I’d find peace this morning. It was so along North Road but by the time I got to the Prom I heard them. I caught the music first – loud, booming, popping. Then came their shouting and fists raised. Were they dancing? They were six or seven lads, I couldn’t tell exactly in the gloom – and they were roaming about on North Beach. The sound of them carried almost as far as the castle. I have to let it be. Don’t I?

I’d heard his TV when I locked up the front door. It sounded like an old 50s movie with its voices, though slightly muffled, sharp-vowelled. He was at his window on my return smoking. Were you watching a film noir? I asked him. No, he said, Lovejoy.