Author: Ellen Bell

I was doing my yoga and listening to the radio. An adaptation of Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet was on and one of the characters was saying to another that he was clearly a tidy person. Tidy people, he said, are always trying to wipe the slate clean. I paraphrase, of course, but it struck me. We are. We are trying to wipe the slate clean, of all it, all our misdemeanours.

My night was full of angry dreams. I was angry with people, him, an ex, and a woman who had purloined (if that is the right word) the machine in the launderette that I was using. She’d thrown her washing in when I wasn’t looking. I was washing other people’s clothes, two women’s mostly. One of which saw my underwear showing and reached out to touch it enviously. I wasn’t a servant but I was serving them in some way. The woman who stole the machine was a different race from me and she scowled as I scowled. She was in the basement where the machine was located. I had to lean down into a tunnel to reach it. Another dream was based around a wedding. This one seemed to be about clothes too. We were in my ex’s in laws’ house, meeting them all prior to the big event. One of them, a gaudy outspoken woman was showing us her collection of medals (they were the kind you get out of cereal packet) and saying how adding to this collection would be a good idea for a present. Were we to get one for her too, as well as the bride and groom? (I think perhaps this has come from the Raj Quartet also – one of the characters, an elderly woman called Barbie had given the bride and groom a set of silver tea spoons. They are each an apostle, you see, she’d said delightedly. And then she’d got so distressed when she hadn’t seen them displayed with the other gifts.) I hadn’t liked this woman’s clothes – too garish as my mother would’ve said. But I’d felt bad about it and tried to hide it as best I could.

There were over twenty mobile homes parked up along the harbour. People wandered about, even at that hour. I skirt my way around them, not wanting to give offence. Now it rains and he ums and ahs about walking.

I’m always wary of those I see out in the early morning as I walk. As they probably are of me.

I saw him lumbering his way in my direction at the other end of Chalybeate Street. There was something about his choice of hat that made me edgy. And his gait, its unevenness also raised my hackles. He wasn’t drunk but perhaps he’d escaped some sort of institution. I feel guilty about making such assumptions, nay judgements about my fellow man but it’s a safety thing. A be prepared thing. He shouted to me. His voice was a little too loud. A man with what these days they would call ‘learning difficulties’. Though what does it matter? He was a man. And a friendly one, at that.

Good morning, he shouted. Good morning, I said back. Top of the morning to you, he continued, the early bird catches the worm. It certainly does, I replied. We were passing each other now, though still on opposite pavements. Have a good day, he said, see you again. And then he was gone, his shouts still echoing off the buildings.

There was a young seagull standing on the pavement at the far end of Llanbadarn Road. I saw its form in shadow as I approached. It didn’t move at the sight or sound of me. It didn’t even shift, just stood there. I stepped into the road so as not to unnerve it.

The pavements in town are still strewn with debris from bags that the gulls have ripped open, throw-away blue face masks have begun to join the fish and chip cartons, the crisp packets and sandwich wrappers.

I would rather go and meet it than have it forced on me, unawares. But the meeting of it, or the running or walking to meet it, is never easy. I spent the day putting myself into another box that isn’t of my design. I want it. Or at least part of me does just so that I can live with myself. It is the best of it. If I have to go out to work than I’d rather do something that helps others than not. At least there is meaning in it. And the meaning, the worth of it will carry it along. It’s just the forms and the statements and the cvs that are not reflective of me of what I’ve been and what I’ve become. I don’t fit. I mean well, I work hard but I don’t fit into other people’s boxes. I don’t even fit into my own. Another encounter with people today. First day for wearing a mask. Having to. I want my feet done. They hurt. But I long to stay here, safe. Another good thing came through the email. The possibility of another article. Fingers crossed. Is this what I am supposed to do? Is there ever to be a clear light?

It mizzles with rain outside. We were to picnic with flasks on the Prom before my appointment but this morning it will just feel miserable so we and the flasks will stay here. Heigh ho. What it is to be loved and cared for.

I started reading the introduction to a book on Edward Lear’s Collected Nonsense. I had no idea that he was such a fascinating man. But then why shouldn’t he have been? Aren’t we all, in our ways? And he had his trials, for all his seeming blitheness (as exhibited in his comic drawings and writings) – his epilepsy for one (a condition that was far from understood in the Victorian times) and his bouts of depression. He called them The Morbids. His playing with words was pure delight. I want to make some drawings inspired by them, though I am daunted, overshadowed, eclipsed by his brilliance. Somewhere in the introduction the writer mentioned a quote about learning – learning as happiness. An apposite thought when our powers that be are still trundling on about education being purely a means to an end, that end being a job. What of joy, eh?

I’ve heard the plaintive cries from what I take to be a fledgling, ousted from its nest to make its own way, the last two evenings as I’ve lain in bed. It breaks my heart. And I know that the Krays (our neighbours very expensive cats) are at large and they will have it. I don’t know where it is, somewhere in the wilderness yonder, in the undergrowth or among the trees. It calls and calls and no parent responds.

The sentence in my head when I woke was ‘fighting the parents of peace’. Not sure why. Oh, and the mobile homes are back at the harbour. Even in the rain. And I forgot to say that the other day I saw a couple, both on crutches (she had one he two) making their way to South Beach at 4.00 am in the morning with two fold-up deckchairs. There’s nowt stranger than folk.

The rain washed them away. All those mobile homes and campervans that littered the harbour have gone. Fair weather visitors, they’re not here for the long haul. As I neared the harbour I could see a light bobbing on top of the water. It was a boat, a fishing boat, a small one setting off for a day’s fishing. There are still lots of boats on stilts on the harbour’s edge. Some are for sale, some grow shabby for disuse and neglect while others await a coat of paint. They seem sad out of the water, cumbersome and plain wrong. Though I like to look at them, even in the gloom of the early morning. They are statuesque, noble beings, that in their simple wooden forms withstand so much.

I woke from dream after dream about The Moonstone, which we are currently immersed in. I know the book, and the theatrical adaptation, having being FOH at The Royal Exchange in the nineties when they had a long run of it, but this film from 1996 is new to me. It has a stellar cast, including Keeley Hawes, Greg Wise and Patricia Hodge and the glorious Anthony Sher as Sergeant Cuff. They all look so young and fresh-faced. A lifetime away.

I woke from a dream about the Queen. Well, it wasn’t directly about her. I had been commissioned to do some illustrations to celebrate her visit to a small town shop. The interest of the dream for me is watching myself in my dream state trying to solve creative problems. I hadn’t been given much time so I had to find some short cuts. I thought about basing my ideas on Warhol’s coloured screen prints of her, though in my dream I couldn’t remember his name. My concerns in my sleep state were all wrapped up in printers and scanners and office drawers. I can see as I write it where these notions come from, they reflect, as they usually do my waking thoughts, though a trifle jumbled, as if they’ve been put in a tumble dryer. Nice though – there was pleasure in the work and the solving. And what a busy bee I am in my sleeping.

I’ve finished his quilt. What a job. It doesn’t look so bad. I enjoyed the hand sewing at the end the best. A control thing I suppose, or perhaps the quiet of it is preferable to the jarring noise of the machine.

Listened to Jens Stoltenberg on Desert Island Discs. An earnest man, I think, and a trifle serious. Very sing-song English. I made me homesick.

House cleaned. Tea made for me, coffee for him. Now to work.

It was her birthday today, I think. Such a long time ago. A good friend, a kind friend. I miss her laughter, her blitheness and her courage. Rest in peace.

I saw his fire first, an orange flame on the beach, licking and curling in the slight breeze. I waited for that gorgeous smell of charred wood and smoke and then I saw him. He was curled up in a foetal position against the chill of the morning air and dressed in what looked like a khaki shirt and cargo trousers. He was young, possibly in his twenties or early thirties. He lay close to the wall along South Marine Terrace. Was he asleep? Did I disturb him by walking past. If I’d been him I’d have found a more secret place, but perhaps he wanted to be near people, perhaps it felt safer to be close to homes, to civilisation. Was he a traveller, or a homeless person? He lay close to a bag. Was he just passing through?

I also saw him. We’ve seen him for years walking up and down the Prom with his walking stick, his tall, thin frame and frizz of wild grey hair marking him out as odd, eccentric, not quite right. He knows him. Not well. He has psychiatric problems, he said, poor man. He knows his name. I saw him yesterday morning outside the ‘troublesome’ flats along Mill Street. He was sitting on a low wall. Was he smoking? He didn’t have any shoes on. He was sitting there in his stocking feet. His hair was still a frizz but it was cut shorter in a kind of bob. I said good morning. What else can you say when you pass someone at 4.00 am? He didn’t reply but just stared at me. Fair enough, I thought. The discomfort and obligation to say something was mine not his.

A blackbird seemed to follow me a little along Llanbadarn Road. First it bobbed onto the little wall skirting Cwrt Cenydd and then it bounced down beneath it. And as I continued to walk it didn’t fly away but appeared to bounce along beside me. They stare at you with one eye. Robins follow me regularly but blackbirds don’t, until today.

Wales is open. The harbour was a mass of mobile homes and campervans and the bins along the Prom disgorged fish and chip cartons, bottles and crisp packets. And empty bottles stood abandoned by the sand’s edge. There were more people about too. Three wandered barefoot along the wet sand and a couple sauntered the Prom ahead of me. It is changing. The town is metamorphosing into holiday mode full of strangers.

The book case is still unclaimed though someone has put an empty beer can on one of its shelves. What will they do with their enormous onions?

I think about the change that is coming, possibly of home and work. What will it bring? I try to remain open but I wobble between excitement and fear. Just take it slowly. And breathe. She says she’ll call to catch up. Will it be a slow drawing away?

Always change. They are leaving. She waved at us as we sat on our chairs in the sun in the car park. Her little boy, spruce in his yellow t-shirt, didn’t. She waves in a rather frenetic way, more by way of compensation for her lack of English. We leave on Monday, she said, from her position under the tree, and out of the sun. We go back to China. We’d noticed the wooden dresser-cum-bookcase that had been placed under the same tree – with its notice encouraging whoever wanted it to have it. It must be theirs, he said. Her husband came up the little hill shortly afterwards. They look so young. He seemed weary carrying two full carrier bags. So you are leaving on Monday, he said to him. Yes, said the Chinese man, and then said something about lots to do. I caught a glimpse of their flat through the door as we walked back. Yes, utter chaos, they’ve much to do. But they are so sunny, always smiling. I shall miss them. And the little one. He is so bold, so loved, so safe. I shall miss they way she lays out all her shopping on the terrace outside their flat, in the sun. And her little garden, all growing out of plastic washing-up bowls. And the smells of her cooking.

I lost it yesterday. I’m not good with things I can’t do or understand. And I don’t like machines, partly for those self-same reasons. So I fucked it up. And lost my temper. (And it was a no tea day – which may or may not have been the reason for my tantrum.) Today I am calmer (and we talked of important things and some progress has been made and I can see a way forward – Lord let me not be romantic but help me to remain open to all things) and will approach the mistakes made evenly with my unpicker in hand.

But I did try those two new recipes for fruit bread and oat crunchies. The bread was appreciated. How I love to make bread – it is such a staple and the feel of the dough so springy and light is a joy. The biscuits smelt divine but he said that they broke in his mouth. Is that a good thing or bad? Keep on trying, eh?

I have started the machine rolling – let us see what comes. I am open. I am open to the possibilities of this oh so precious life.

Sometimes it is just words, words that seem to float about in my head during my dreams. They are mostly said inside my head, a spoken thought, so to speak. Finding-down eggs was one of them. And it definitely wasn’t referring to the act of coming upon the eggs, ‘finding-down’ were a kind of egg. What kind of egg I cannot say. So evocative, so full of richness. I love this part of me, it is so free of rigidity, of fear, of fear of judgement. I wish I could remember more, but it is quite a thing to wake in the dark and struggle to write things down before they are lost. Equivalent was another word that hung around. Not sure why.

There is a blue sky after so many days of grey, overcast ones. Though the wind is wild. I remember our horses becoming skittish on windy days and galloping around the confines of their field, kicking up their hooves, tossing their manes and flicking their tails. I can see the white flashes on the waves on the sea.

I’ve much to do. And I’m hungry already. So much for oranges, eh? Coloured water, he says, coloured water.

I woke around 9.30 pm needing a pee and happened to look out of my bedroom window. It was still light and the sun had cast a sharp beam upon the piece of wasteland just beyond our block. It was a deep yellow that turned the greens of the grass, scrub and trees into a bright, brilliant lime. When I returned to bed the yellow had gone and the light returned to the dull grey of the coming night. Had it woken me? That light, that temporal glow?

I dreamt of an old friend from my MA days. We were outside on a stretch of tarmac. It was where she used to live and she was explaining where her garden used to be, in great detail. I struggled to follow her. It was gone and I couldn’t imagine how it had been. An earlier dream had involved living in a small, close space with lots of other people, young people. Were we on holiday together? The gist of it was that we all had to keep wearing the same clothes. And there was an irritation in that and the fact that we were packed so closely together. Pictures made from daily concerns. Silly, trivial concerns.

The sun is out this morning. The wind is sharp but there is more light than we’ve had for days. I appreciate it. The commission is on hold, perhaps cancelled. I am disappointed, it gave me a fillip when it was offered. Wait and see. Wait and see.