Author: Ellen Bell

My dreams make my first waking hours a little grey. They colour them. I try to resist their influence but it is hard. I still move within them. The other night I was looking at my own back. I was studying it in detail. I was naked and I watched my muscles and bones move. A strong back, rather wider than my own. Last night someone was talking me through what books to get for ‘baby’. I’m not sure who baby was. Was it mine or was it me? She was quite bossy, this woman. The next dream involved another woman, one who had been invited to set up a drama school in Durham. She was excited and had given up her job to do this. I was in a canteen with two other women. We were on a journey and having something to eat before we set off. It was as usual, there were nothing for me to eat. They talked of getting a take away and I wondered if my stomach could hold out until then.

I’ve lost Radio 3. I’ve touched something and it’s gone awry. I throw a wobbly mostly because it stresses me that I don’t understand machines. Breathe and sort it out later. Trust. And it will be so.

Ronnie Kray is missing. Ronnie Kray is on the run. Ronnie Kray is gone. Ronnie, the name I heard her calling under my window the other night is one of her oh so precious cats. She loves them. She carries them sometimes in a soft cage strapped to her chest. She takes them for walks. She has computerised tags attached to their collars. She will be devastated. My heart goes out to her. I hope he is safe somewhere in an outhouse or sitting by a stranger’s fire being fed. Another home from home. And that he will soon return. Cat’s are fickle, not like dogs. I wish him a safe return. For her. For her.

Not quite sure why I did it. I think it was because I didn’t want to appear stupid. I should’ve been honest and just admitted that I hadn’t read it. It wouldn’t have mattered. No one would have cared. It was silly and I felt so for doing it. I went to confess to him. He laughed, hugged me and said it was fine and then spent the rest of the morning pulling my leg over it.

My dreams continue full. More about food. An empty carton of beetroot juice. And a lover. And that old familiar feeling of a desire never sated.

The wind wasn’t the 45 speed they had promised and the rain held off. I was grateful. I had my usual walk, well almost, a little curtailed as I had so much domestic stuff to do before breakfast. He’s just gone out now, all waterproofed up.

I want to escape. I want to sit in front of a real fire with a huge pot of tea with my shoes off and my legs up on the arm of great big sloppy armchair. Can I do this please? Somewhere else. To be somewhere else where nothing is expected of me but to be and to exist and to observe.

I apologise to him. I am lucky and I am, in the main, content. But I miss the sitting in cafes and the people-watching and that just-passing-the-time-of-day sort of piffle. I do miss this.

My dreams come thick and fast. In the first there was a big white fluffy cat, no doubt inspired by my hearing our neighbour calling one of the Krays (her two felines) under my window before I dropped off. Then there was the cafe I was working in where there wasn’t enough food to satisfy the desires of the constant stream of customers and where the chef (a dead spit of my line manager at work) was not at all concerned. There was so much chatter and people sitting too near at tables. Then there was the baby. It was mine. I wrapped it in blankets and furs. And it spoke to me even though it was only months old. I don’t belong anywhere, it said. You belong to me, I said and held it close.

The Dartmouth Crab Company lorry was parked up at the harbour this morning. I thought that the fishing was ended for this year. Clearly not. Though I rarely see the fishing boats coming in or going out these days. I tried to pay attention and watched as a single leaf floated down from a tree on Llanbadarn Road and then noticed a cobweb, delicate and perfect, heavy with rain just under a light by the student accomodation on Northgate Terrace. They had turned off the Christmas tree lights in Sophie’s Cafe. And there was no smell of bread from the Pelican Bakery. Yesterday it smelt of fruit loaf.

The rain was relentless as I walked this morning. I got drenched, it even came through into my boots. It makes me a little cross. I try to fight it.

I dreamt she was driving us in a car. And some nasty people got in. They kind of wheedled their way in by smooth-talking. I didn’t trust them, she was more accepting. I was in the far back of the car (it must’ve been an estate) and suddenly there were loads of others in there with me. Who are you? I demanded. I started to plan my escape. But if I got out where would I go and would they chase me? I tried to call out to her to stop, to warn her but my voice wouldn’t come. I woke myself up with a strangled cry.

More work has come in just when I planned to work on my own stuff. It’s OK. It’s a gift for I was fretting about where the money was going to come from. I accept it gracefully and thankfully. I will find time for mine. Soon.

The BBC weather forecast called it a fresh breeze. It wasn’t. It howled down by the harbour. It was like a rather bad, discordant percussion section – the boats rigging was jangling, clanging, ringing, knocking and all the time there was that interminable howling and whistling. It is rather magnificent but I wasn’t expecting it. Further into town and towards home garden gates rattled and a metal garage door clanked. At one point I thought someone was right behind me and turned round sharply letting out a cry. It’s the wind, it makes me jumpy. I’ve seen horses react the same, suddenly breaking into a canter, and chasing round and round their field. Earlier, while in my bath the radio went odd too. I was listening with real pleasure to a Haydn symphony and it suddenly stopped to be replaced first by a high pitch squealing and then by a lower kind of harsh white noise. It went on like that interchanging the sounds for about two minutes. I kept praying it would stop so that I wouldn’t have to get out of my bath wet and dripping to turn it off. It did stop and Haydn returned as if nothing had happened. Who knows what it was.

Sophie’s Cafe has a christmas tree up and lit. My second. What a joy. Thank you. Thank you. Especially as these mornings I can no longer smell the bread making aromas from The Pelican Bakery to ease me on my way in the dark. (They keep the door shut.) Christmas lights will do as a substitute. More please.

Now to work. Much to do. A couple more days then rest. And the rice fast will also be over. How I long for an apple. And real tea. (Just have some, he says.)

There are more and more people about as I walk in the mornings. They are students mainly. One lad was drunk and lurching, his head staring down at his red trainers. Then, all of sudden he looked up as if waking from a stupor and whirled about uncertain where he was or where he was going. He shook himself out of it and kept walking. Another three were coming up the steps from the beach onto the Prom as I neared. They’d been swimming. There was a girl, her black swimming costume exposed under a fake leopard-skin fur coat. Her feet were bare. She was tiny. The other two were lads, one with a towel wrapped around his middle. She seemed to be in charge. A pretty girl, pretending to be a film star no doubt as I used to do when I was her age, though I didn’t have her nerve. I watched as she picked her tiny feet over the pebbles on the pavement and thought of that night I drove to a beach with that kind, gentle boy and we sat and looked at the sky. I remembered his name when I got home and how he liked the songs of Joni Mitchell.

Odin, Lillian, Perseverance, Miss You and Phrygos are all out of the water and on stilts down by the harbour ready for their repairs.

I dreamt of boats, liners to be specific. Someone had invited me to join their party on a cruise. Lots of people. And we were mostly inside. When I docked I walked a little with another friend. I saw some clear, icy water and dived into it. Now you are all wet, she said. Then she said, I must go home. And I felt a pang. Back on board there were three women sitting in one of the cafes. Oh, good, one of them said I can now order some Beef Stroganoff. At another point in the dream I was in a cinema. The lights were up and it was full. Everybody was eating ice creams and flapjacks spilling crumbs everywhere. I was the only one not eating, clutching my ribs and wearing black. Then later I was talking to her and I couldn’t remember her name. The loss of it hurt me.

It was OK. She was happy. It is enough to have it so.

There seemed to be more people about than usual this morning. Students loafed about shopping at the 24hr garage or the SPAR, or sat up in living rooms drinking and chatting. There was a spirit of party about, not sure why. Somebody had a firework display at about 6.30 pm last night, only 4 days too late. A man sat in a parked silver car along the Prom, his engine was on and music pumped from it. One of his back windows had been pushed in and a plastic bag had been taped around the gap. The door to The Penguin Cafe was open as I walked past at 4 am. A man stood at the counter leaning over some files while another man sat at one of the benches with a cup of something. Only some of the overhead lights were on. More lights were shining from the doorway of the shop that used to be Thorntons along Great Darkgate Street and its metal barrier had been partly raised. I could see Newports of Aberystwyth etched on the glass of the door. I asked him at breakfast what it used to be and he didn’t know. There were five mobile homes at the harbour. I tried to let go of my thoughts and listen to the sea. In and out, rolling and pulling back. It is quite a discipline.

I saw it this morning as I walked. It was shining, its lights ablaze in the window of The White Horse on Terrace Road. What a fillip it gave me. Perhaps they are celebrating the lifting of lockdown in Wales today and trying to entice customers back in. Thank you. I needed that. And the spinning mirror ball effect throwing sequins of light onto the dark pavement. It doesn’t matter how tacky. Bring it on. I need light.

A grey cloth cap lay discarded, lost or forgotten along Darkgate Terrace.

Did I smell bonfires as I set out for my walk this morning? Or was it my imagination?

When I meditate I don’t feel anxious. Is fear solely in the mind?