Author: Ellen Bell

Walking out from Llanbadarn Road and across Penglais I hear voices. Several voices. They are loud, cheerful, perhaps slightly intoxicated voices. Young voices. Students? I feel slightly edgy. I want silence. I expected silence. Monday morning is usually silent. Where are they? Where is the sound coming from? Darkgate Terrace? The Coopers Arms? No, it’s shut. One of the side streets? No, there it is. There they are. A lad first then two girls. They are singing. He sings first. My love keeps me warm. He looks at me as he sings. As he walks down the little hill from North Road. The two girls sing in harmony with him. Higher voices than his. One has a lovely soprano. My love keeps me warm. They walk past, the girls not noticing me, still singing.

A few shapes in the blackness, one down by the harbour. A woman, possibly? The one who smokes? No, I don’t think so. The fishing trawler is there, its lights full one. How I love that. It cheers me, makes me feel safe. And the Samways truck with it’s beautiful drawing of a fish. A trout? Waiting. It is waiting. No generator noise. Then up by the Castle I stand still. Thinking about the power of standing still. Will they go for my idea? Do I care either way? Not really. My energy is low. I want to go with what is. Not push. Not for now. There is enough for now. I try to concentrate on my walking. Fully walk, finding my tread, my feet on the ground. My mind tries harder to undo me. Harder and harder. My back tightens. A guitar string, he said, your pulse is like a guitar string.

Walking down Great Darkgate Street I hear another voice. Whoa! it shouts. As if to a horse. Whoa! My hackles raise. Is that to me? Where is it? Where is he? I walk on past Superdrug, Supersavers and Poundland. He’s in the doorway, hidden by a pillar. A large man. Pink as a pig. Bald head, big ears. Whoa, he is saying, then, hiya. He’s on the phone. It wasn’t about me. I crossed it that’s all. I traversed into another’s life, briefly. It wasn’t meant for me. I walk on, peering in at Slater’s Bakery. All steamed up. Then the Pelican Bakery. No steam there. I can see through the window. The shop assistant is unloading bread from crates and placing the loaves on the shelves behind the counter. Sometimes I walk behind her as she arrives at work. Does she catch the train there? Just like in France this bakery opens early, six I think. I like that. People coming for their bread fresh first thing in the morning. In France they open on Sunday mornings too. Bread must be fresh. And in Spain too.

I fantasise sometimes about being a baker. I like the idea of it. I don’t know how it would be, of course. But I like the idea of the early hours, the solitude. The simplicity of the task. You make then go home. No interaction with the public. Just baking. Making the daily bread. The staple. And the smell. Would I ever tire of it? Or the heat? The baker in the Pelican is big. A mountain of a man. The one at Slater’s is wiry, small and always dressed in shorts. I wouldn’t make a big range of bread. Just simple loaves. What is required. No waste. I’d bake with love. Early in the morning, wearing an apron covered in flour.

I didn’t explain. I forgot. The singing tree. What is it? What do I mean? No, it isn’t a reference to Enid Blyton’s Singing Ringing Tree. I never read it, though I think there was an adaptation of it on the TV when I was a child. He read it, I think. He read most of the Blyton books. I never really got along with them. There were too many children. I never belonged to a gang like that, I couldn’t relate to it, nor to Swallows & Amazons. I’ve always felt more comfortable alone, a Jane Eyre figure and consequently sought out heroines who felt the same, Anne Elliot from Persuasion, Anne of Green Gables, Jo from Little Women. Singular women, though of course belonging to my later years. I cannot remember many female heroes from my young childhood. I read Blyton but preferred what? I remember horsie books. Why? I’m not in the least interested in horses but I suppose it is what was offered. The Silver Brumby, I remember. And Black Beauty, of course.  I did read the Narnia tales, though I found them harrowing, particularly when Aslan was caught and tethered. And then there were the fairy tales. Grimm’s, Perrault’s, I lapped them up. Girls were alone in most of those, having to cope, be resourceful and inevitably finding happiness with a man. Ah, me. And so it was and ever will be.

No, the singing tree of my title is one that I pass on my return home in the early hours. It sings. It sings with bird song. Not a large tree but a noisy one. What are they? Robins, sparrows, blue tits? I walk past it and it seems to come to life. Chirruping, tweeting, calling forth the dawn. Marvellous.

A flooding of starlings have just flown past and the sky is blue grey. There they go again. Spanning the sky, they flit and dive, calling to each other. What sets them off?

I tried it and I will persevere. It made me tenser. So much resistance. Yet another thing I feel obliged to do. Where is the time? Where is the time to do all I wish to do? My lower body relaxed, it tingled, but the rest remained stiff as a board. I want to do well too much. Always needing approval. This is not about achievement, the voice intones. There is no right or wrong way. And then there is this drawing. I cannot figure it out. I hold the image of it my mind while I walk, brush my teeth and go about my day. Is it a trick? Why has she given it to us? I am disappointed that there is no euphoria. He says that’s good. The come down will be less. Anger, pain, grief are already there, waiting in the wings. Already and it’s only the first week.

It was busy on the Prom. It’s the mild air I suppose. Two security men at the Pier Pressure nightclub seemed to be chasing each other up the stairs when I passed. The younger fitter man sped up the stairs while his heavier, older colleague huffed and puffed after him. Or perhaps they were chasing a miscreant.

A still day, no rain so far. He has returned to bed. I prepare to work. I tried. She did not respond. That is her prerogative. She did it also. That long silence. Impenetrable. I am out of kilter. But if she choses isolation I must respect it. Let it be. All will come right that needs to do. I dreamt of old friends and how their kitchen cupboards were jam-packed with loaded platters of party food from years back. They’d been shoved in willy-nilly and forgotten. I wanted to find a clean plate for some fresh food. I must go and see him before he goes. I will go alone. Perhaps I will see her to?

A bientot.

A mild morning. There are lots of kids, students on the Prom. I listen to their chatter. Girls without coats, running on tippy-toe through the rain. Newly found lovers arm in arm. One couple strolls past me. The girl is speaking. Petit-pois, say. He laughs. Nearing the Pier Pressure nightclub another pair are walking towards me. The problem is the Freshers, the boy is saying, ending his half-finished sentence with ‘like’. Heading home and passing the Insurance Agent’s shop and Lilley’s café (though I think it is called something else now) I walk behind an Asian-looking boy and white girl. You’re Hungarian right? he is asking her. Yes. So what’s the Hungarian for ‘quiet’?

Walking through the Castle park there is a figure ahead of me, a hoodie obscuring his face in this semi-darkness. I feel a frisson of fear. He’s a big man. I push forward. He walks under a street lamp. There’s a dog. He has a dog on a leash. I relax. It’s OK. A boy passes me the other way. His phone lights up his face. There is Rap music coming from it and he is singing along.

Scores of taxis buzz around the streets. All white. Always white. They line the right-hand side of Great Darkgate Street. It’s warmer inside, shouts one of the drivers at a student huddled in a shop doorway. He finishes his cigarette and throws it on the ground. The cab with the Taxi sign and its missing ‘x’ is parked by the Cooper’s Arms. Still not repaired it then?

What can I say about yesterday? It was exhausting. I cried almost from the start. I felt raw, skinned. And yet, we did little. No exuberance. No deliverance. There is nothing. Nothing but ourselves. I didn’t want to share. I didn’t feel generous. But I felt compassion, so much, for all of them. Good people, gentle beings, even he with his anger. You could see it, it was palpable. It made me wary. A nice little hall. It smelt musty but it was warm. Old fashioned toilets, a little stage and a wooden roof. The Quakers are good with things like toilets, one of them said, trying to stop the silence. I wanted it. That silence. Ask the question of your heart. Let it drop down, she said. It did and I wept. So much grief. From me, from them, for me, for them.

We almost rowed. But we pulled it back. He is only trying to protect me. And I am a crocodile, snap, snap. Don’t be scared, my love. The change, if there is to be any change, will be on the inside. No more running away. For I cannot. There is nowhere to go, to run, from me. I cannot.

Shall I contact her? I am nervous of it. All she can say is no. Can I deal with no? Is that OK? To be told no.

She called me ‘love’. I was touched. She is not an effusive woman. I love her. I know her sharpness, but I understand it. There is often pain, sometimes there is awkwardness. She was the same, though her rancour was bone-deep.

I will give it a try. I will give myself to it. And find what? Nothing. That would be good. That nothing. Not a despairing, hopeless, empty nothing. No, a full, joyful, open space-full nothing.

Yes.

The morning’s coming up. A deep blue before the grey. A morning blue. And I always feel better, not so locked-in, hemmed in by anxiety. What is it about? Everything and nothing. But you are to die, I tell myself, soon, now, later, whatever you will soon not exist. At least not in this form. Can that not give you peace or at least the willingness to succumb, to yield to all? For your power is nil, you cannot control it. Any of it. Contrarily yielding is powerful. That giving in, that acquiescing for it removes the tightness of fear. Do your worst, it says for I am unflustered by it. I accept what is. Always. Can I? Can I do this? Can I accept that it is always so uncertain? When I’m walking the anxiety comes in thick and fast. It’s the motion, I think, and the freedom, the space that my mind has to fill. This and that, fret fret and fret. I try to challenge the ideas, what about this? How about seeing it this way or that? To let go.

I let go in sleep. The redeemers she calls them. A Swiss myth apparently, three men sleeping in a mountain and by doing so keeping the peace. Their sleep is the village’s peace. A nice image. That’s what most of them do there, sleep. I watched them. To give oneself up to sleep in public. They must be so tired. The tiredness of pre-death. A lifelong of tiredness.

I could sleep and sleep, I say to him. Well, why don’t you? he says. Because there is so much, so much to do. The sky is now a little pink. A pink wash. A little insipid, like a tentative watercolour.

It was good yesterday. I got a result. Though that sounds tacky. I got a response. I know she is probably one of the most gregarious of the residents but nevertheless she came and sat down right next to me. Just like that. Oh, hello, she said, how are you? I know so many people, she told me later, but I can’t remember their names. She is profoundly deaf and swallows her vowels as a result. It is hard to make out much of what she says. Sometimes she sings and acts out Welsh Rhymes. I don’t speak Welsh anymore, she says, I used to. I liked sitting in that lounge. Pendinas, the one looking out on the hill. I planted that hedge, she says, pointing out of the window. I don’t know what to say. Did you? I reply. The TV is off. Most of the residents slumber. Some sit at tables and having just finished their breakfast, they await lunch. One rather elegant woman sits by an open window. Her grey hair is stylishly cut in a bob and her clothes are a pastel-shade of green. She eats a bowl of cereal slowly while she stares. I go to the kitchen to make some tea, she looks at me and gives a warm, beautiful smile.

How I love him. I feel it most when we’ve been apart, if only for a couple of hours and then I see him again. Like yesterday when he returned to the home to pick me up. He looks so kind and is. He takes her hand, she opens to him like a tired flower. And the sleeping man wakes too, and he greets him. I am so proud. To be with him in this life is a blessing.

A good day. And today? Another new thing. It is a rich. It is not what I expected but it is nonetheless rich. A bounty of experience.

It’s heartbreaking, he said as we left. Walk ahead of her, one of the staff told us, else she’ll follow you into the lift. I wanted to say goodbye but couldn’t.

Can you do me favour? she asked. Can you take me with you?

It’s funny how the smallest change can alter one’s point of view.

I’ve moved my bed. Ever since it was dripped on I’ve not wanted to put it back where it was. My view is different. I now face the window full on. I have a face full of sky. I see less trees but more sky. It feels odd. My dreams have changed, I’m certain of it. Is it Feng Shui at work? And this morning I moved everything else in the room accordingly. I don’t have much in there, I don’t want it. A rack for my clothes, a table, a lamp, two alarm clocks (one for the time, the other for the tick) and a telephone. I like land line phones, though this one is a heavy, 1950’s Bakelite one that is useless when you’re put through to a numbering service. You know the kind, press 3 if you’d actually like to speak to someone. So I can’t use it for that. But I like the look of it. I like it’s ring. Yes, I feel different. Is it just my bed?

It’s fixed. We have heating and hot water. My bath this morning was glorious. Thank you. It has been so comfortless. The house has felt unloved, unwarmed-up. It is happier now. As indeed are we. They all came yesterday, big man after big man. Bang, bang went the door, lumber lumber up the stairs. But they were amazing, ingenious, creative and fast once they get going. And they don’t want tea, or water. Nothing. I am grateful. More than I can say.

I’m off now to my residency. It comes around so fast. Let us be kinder to each other this week. I make him nervous I think with my demands. He tries his best. I ask so much of him. But it is well. It is well.

I will carry Ming Ho’s play in my mind. Who are you? I want my mother. I want my mother.

He reminds me of a sloth, not in demeanour or action, he is not lazy or somnolent, far from it, it’s more something around the eyes. His eyes are heavy, doleful, sad. We were in the kitchen eating lunch. He was sitting with me, for company and as a shield against all the goings on. And he had just dashed up the stairs in his stocking feet to tell us of the latest in the catalogue of boiler disasters. It’s still not fixed. More parts have to be found. He’d spent the whole morning drilling into the wall. It rent through the walls, like a super-sonic dentist’s machine. A sound that seers one’s bones. It’s still not fixed. Another night, another day of warm-air blowing machines, thimble-full baths and making-do, we thought, catching each other’s eye. Can you make us a priority? I asked him. Then he got his camera out and scrolled to video, all the while listing the other jobs he’s got on the go. Burst pipes, kaput boilers, on and on, then he began describing a house he went to yesterday and handed him the camera. See, he said. All the ceilings have caved in. They’re living in a swimming pool. And he laughs bitterly, his eyes sadder than ever. I could hardly bear to look. The plaster hung from the ceiling, the wooden floor was a lake of water, sofa and chairs floating. A home. Someone’s home, utterly devastated. We were suitably chastened. I do feel for you, he said, in his hang-dog world-weary way. We’ve still got no water. The pipes have burst somewhere under the field. That will be my job over the weekend.

So we have to wait. Till whenever. Wait for parts to come in. Parts that he cannot yet identify. Meanwhile he has stuffed the hole with roof insulator. I cannot bear to clean. No, what would be the point? Whenever the pity comes in I think of that family. Such devastation. I didn’t want to see it. But I must. I must.

Am I too picky? My piece has been posted. A word changed and there’s a blaring typo. It hurts. The balance has been affected. Should I care less? Perhaps. But I was happy with it. It was OK.

He calls it a small life. I love our small life, he says. Is it small? Sometimes, terribly so. I felt it this morning. I feel closed in by the chaos of this coming and going of heavy-footed strangers. One of the boys kept letting the front door slam. Bang, bang, bang over and over. Can I say something? Where is the peace? Is there peace in the chaos? Is that the key? Find that and all will be well. I walked to my appointment yesterday. I was a little early so I sat on a bench in the sun for ten minutes and closed my eyes. Lovely. A gentle time. I shut my eyes and listened to the noise of the street, taking myself away from it. Away. And then this morning standing on the end of the Perygyl and listening to the sea. It is enough, sometimes. I try to take my consciousness down to my belly, my solar plexus away from the ranting, fretting chatter of my head. Out of it. Care but care less. Fancy free. What is that exactly?

If you had a proper job, he says. A throw away line that eats at me. I know he doesn’t mean it. Why do I let it eat me? Play after play of hardship, pain, loss and loneliness. They enter me, take me over. The woman with MS taking herself off to Switzerland, the stalker and the voyeur who films his wife, his child. They were my company yesterday as I worked, colouring the work, deepening that yellow.

I will sew. Sewing grounds me, settles me. A chance of work and I can’t do it. Will more come? I need to work, lots of work so that I can replenish my savings. A bit put by each month. What am I doing? Why do I feel so small? I have taken such journeys to expand my life, and there is another booked, and yet the smallness still dogs me. And yet, when I am out, when my eyes are closed in the sun, then, anything seems possible. For I am gone, I am out. Out of fear. Cancelled. Out.

We’ve both been wobbled by it all. We are home-birds. We need things just so. A flow, a pattern, a routine. It hasn’t always been so, for either of us. He had his wild moments and I too. Perhaps it’s an age thing. To be grounded, to feel the ground beneath my feet so that I can work, breathe and take cover. It’s gone on too long. I’m fed up with it now, he said.

They did come but it still hasn’t been fixed. They cut a hole in the wall and shook their heads. More work. And now there is scaffolding outside my bedroom. A makeshift balcony. A Juliet balcony. Come and sing to me. Anyone can stand on it and look in. Look in at me in bed. Who’d want to? I would, he said.

They will come again tomorrow. All those big feet up and down the stairs. They bring big hefty lads with them, shy and monosyllabic. I leave them to it. He oversees it. Do they want tea? No.

He lost it a bit yesterday. He gets stressed. And he doesn’t like him. Doesn’t want him here. He can’t just turn up, I say. Not without prior warning. He just wants to poke his nose in, he says.

The wobbling affects everything else. Colour it daunting. I’m daunted today. Keep it simple, keep it small. I have to book them. And what an expense. I’m always intimidated by big expenditure. I like to keep it small. And which one to choose? It’s a minefield. Trust. That is all I can do, trust that I am led to the right one. It’s a holiday. A chance to spend time with dear friends. Just the flight, they say. And yet, it isn’t is it? It’s the flight, the parking, the petrol, the insurance, the travel money and so on. But it’s just energy.

Is it all wrapped up in my sense of self? My belief that I can’t generate much income. Like I can’t generate heat? It floors me sometimes. My skills, whatever they are, have little financial currency. And yet, if I think about it, is that really true? I have made money, I have earned money. My work has sold for vast sums. It’s just it’s hard to quantify. It’s subtler than that. It will come. Ask and it will come. I will be able to earn enough to cover it. It will come. And it is a gift. In the end that is what it is. A gift to them and one to us. Trust it.

A light rain this morning. I like to hear the pattering sound of rain on my umbrella. When I came back I washed his hair in the sink. It’s a tender thing. A mothering thing. The head is vulnerable thing to have hold of. I remember hers when I was learning Reiki. Holding it in my hands. And hers. And his. I like to care like this. I am made whole by it.

Some sayings seem funny when you consider them or try them on your tongue before saying them. Off to a fine art. A fine art. And I have. I thought so this morning. I’ve got this sans-boiler malarkey off to a fine art, I thought. Out of bed I dash upstairs to the kitchen to switch on the kettle and turn on the blow-fire, then back down again to make my bed and prepare the bathroom. Then back up for the boiled kettle to pour it into the bath, then back up again to boil another kettle-full, meanwhile I lay the table for breakfast and write the shopping list. Then it is back down to empty the water into the bath. Then I hang over the bath to wash my hair and face before stripping to get into the now foggy water to splash myself with soap and water. It does. I am managing. Though I do sink later.

Might they come today?

The papers arrived yesterday so clearly some traffic is getting through the mountains. We ran out of milk, she said placing a plum on the scales. Then it arrived late yesterday and there wasn’t time to get it into the fridges. Were you affected by the snow? she asked. I’d gone to work and when I came out my car was sliding all over the place, she continued. I’ve never driven in snow before.

We’re both a little tetchy. He hasn’t slept and I always get edgy in the anticipation of people coming. All that noise and clatter and big galumphing feet. They are good men though, I think. I’d just rather be left in peace.

I dreamt he’d been run over. It was a surreal thing. There was no blood, no gore. He was just flattened before my eyes. The driver of the car, or truck or steam roller, I couldn’t be sure, was angry with him for getting in the way. I cried out, hollered. He was alive. He opened his eyes. He was in shock. It woke me. I got out of bed, had a pee and put on the fire.

My work feels uncontained. I don’t know what questions to ask of it. And yet, there is something, something is coming. I must just persevere. I like the involvement of others. It is very engaging, she wrote. That’s nice. To engage others, I want this. And yet, I also want, nay long for my solitude. Out solitude. What is coming? We cannot know. Shan’t know. Shouldn’t know. Take each moment. Live it a fully as you can. Alive to it. To all.

I’ve been listening to James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. He writes exquisitely. It takes a while to orientate myself, but when I’m steady the language pours over me like honey. But it is bleak, a bleak mostly internal experience. And sometimes I want lightness.

The sky is whitening now. A seagull flashes across it. They’ve been gathering on the shore these last few mornings, huddled up with an occasional oystercatcher peeping in the distance. Unseen but heard, echoing across the promenade. The stink of starling guano from under the Pier made me cross the road.

To work. Enough. Time to make something of the day…..

She was ahead of me while I walked home. It was 3.45 and still pitch, though down by the harbour the sky had looked blue. No moon this morning. And the chill has passed. No ice and just a few traces of snow in those sunless streets. She was ahead of me and I thought it was her hair. A great top knot on top of her head. I could only see the back of her. A black shape, wide of hip and small of foot. A dressed Botero beauty, perhaps. I caught up with her by the station, she had a phone pressed up against her ear. And it wasn’t a hat. What I thought was a top knot were two pink pom poms. She was wearing a bobble hat.

It is often like that when I walk in the early mornings. Things are not quite as they seem. It could be the dimness of the light, or that my perception of them is skewed. I am certainly hyper alert. Walking down Mill Road I heard a sharp click, I spun round, a door was either being opened or shut. My skin develops extra senses in the night, it hears as well as feels. (Listening to David Blunkett hosting an old edition of Down Your Way on Radio 4 extra, I noticed how often he’d refer to sounds, the noise of the steel-making machinery, the music from the old shows at the Lyceum Theatre. Is it his blindness that makes his other senses so acute? He came across as a kind man, a sympathetic man, especially when he spoke to an ex-usherette from the theatre. His speech changed, verbs were dropped from sentences. But it wasn’t a pose, this was no Tony Blair losing his H’s, no it was a way of making her feel more at ease. Lovely.)

She replied. I was touched. She didn’t have to. It was nice to make that connection. It gave me a glow.

She called back. I’d tried her but got the answering machine. She called back. She’s come on such a long way from the first phone call when she had to ring off after a panic attack. She sounded better, stronger. I do like her. I love her in my way. It’s a warmth that flows from me. A deep compassion, just like I felt for the begging woman in Nerja, and the woman in the red fleece at the home on Thursday. It takes me over, it floods me and I want to reach out and touch. I can’t touch her, will probably never meet her. This is enough. This phone call every Friday. Are you OK? I think of you. It is enough.

Still no boiler. We will wait. Maybe on Monday. I keep him warm. I keep it all flowing. I long for a proper bath, to shave my legs and luxuriate. It will come. But meanwhile I am grateful this has been a gift. I know this. Nothing is safe, nothing is as we think. All is illusion. So temporary, so impermanent. All we have is our actions. How we behave to ourselves and to others. Keep steady. Keep warm. Keep kind.

Morning opens up.

Coffee and then work.

And The Archers.

They were standing in a shop doorway, about halfway down Great Darkgate Street, out of the wind. Two sets of lovers. Both men shielding their girls from the cold, pushing them against the window glass. The men were shouting, joshing each other, the girls, hidden by the masculine bulk were silent. A strange kind of love-making. Mates and lovers, separate entities for many. To one you tell all, to the other there is a shared warmth, a temporary satiation of lust and intimacy? I’m not sure. I remember being their age and how the idea of men promised such comfort. But in such a situation, being talked over like that, I would’ve soon got irritated. It doesn’t feel right to be merely an appendage, a squeeze. But perhaps my amor propre has always been a little skewed. Men’s men. I’ve never attracted them. Too gobby. She isn’t gobby, is she? my brother-in-law had said to him down the phone when he told them of me. I can be. I don’t like to be ignored, though I am more tolerant than I used to be. I didn’t like coming here years ago, I felt sidelined, cancelled out. Insecurity, I suppose. Not now. Not with him. I know, as he knows, what this is.

I walked this morning. They’d promised sleet but it was dry. I wore my big warm coat and was thankful for it.

I heard the sound of running water. A tap let on? I was down by the harbour walking past the boatsheds. The sound continued and I saw what looked like a stream of water come out from under the wooden door. I thought it was water. I thought it was just wet and strode my way across it. It was ice. Ah! and then I was down, flat on my back. It’s the shock more than anything else. I’m left shaky and disorientated. The coat cushioned me. A bit battered but I’m OK. I give myself pep talks. Up you get, nothing broken, in that cheerful, parental voice that is doing all it can to distract the child from crying. That’s it. Up you get. I walked on the Perygyl to steady myself. All is well.

They didn’t come. We’d prepared ourselves for the worst. He may come today. The snow was as high as his van yesterday, apparently. It feels like the worse is over. At least it isn’t -5. Another night of coats on beds and boiled kettle baths. We survive.

I snatch bits of Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman at work, though the weather has brought that to a standstill, Sunday’s being cancelled too. He writes nicely, accessibly. I’m up to the section about Ruskin. Sennett writes about the Victorians anxiety about excessive consumerism and how Ruskin encouraged us to have less but to treasure and ‘know’ the objects we do have. I love that. I try to do it myself. I mend, keep things going. I know my things, truly. I notice them, stroke them, not because I laud my possession of them, most after all are worth little, but because I marvel at their form, their texture and the memories they invoke.

I dreamt of her last night. He was saving her. Was she drowning? I came later. I held her, felt her bones. She was skin and bone. Is she still hurting? And then another dream about meeting my dear friend in a restaurant in Italy. It was to be a day trip. So extravagant, so wild. She’d thought I’d so no but I said yes. I got to the restaurant and then couldn’t remember what we’d arranged. Was I at the right place? Then she was there, and all was calm. She too was skin and bone when I hugged her. Solving dreams. Dreams of sun, of warmth.

Resilience. Solving problems. Being kind. Keeping going. It’s just the cold. It bites into my fingers and they split and sting. It’s OK. It’s been OK. We have survived it. Maybe it will be fixed today, maybe Monday. It doesn’t matter, I can be sanguine.

Work now. Coffee first. I want a quiet day. A working day. Amen to that.