Author: Ellen Bell

All the talk this morning in the supermarket was of snow. She lives out in the sticks and the road into the village is never gritted. It’s going to rain in town, she said, but they still grit the roads. Why not grit us instead? She’ll be holed in. I’ve told the kids that they might not be able to go to school tomorrow, she said. They don’t mind.

She’s seemed down of late, though she was perkier today. Perhaps it is the thought of those few days (it isn’t meant to last) being snowed in that is cheering her up. How would I feel? It used to happen to us when we lived in Lancashire. But then everything was taken care of, the stress wasn’t mine. Though missing days of school bothered me. I liked to be on top of everything, I was so scared of failing, of being out of synch with the others.

We trying to keep to a budget. Have I told you? It makes me anxious sometimes. It becomes my responsibility, or have I just made it so? I write the lists, do the managing. Just fifty pounds, twice a week for everything. It seems so much. But it soon goes. And I’ve cut back. Not so much fruit, no pomegranates, no strawberries, no grapes. And I count out my nuts now. But it’s made a difference. And I’ve never minded scrimping. I’m more comfortable with it than I am with excess. A puritan. Someone used to call me that, I forget who. She was called that, the American girl in that Oscar Wilde play. The one about the woman who had a child out of wedlock. Again I forget the name. A Woman of No Importance, that’s it. Anyway, we were slightly over this morning. Oh, no, I said. And she promptly whipped out her staff discount card and took five quid off. There you are, she said. You’re in budget now. She’s done it before. I hope she doesn’t get into trouble. I’m touched. A lovely gesture. Kind.

The wind was strong this morning. But the air was mild. The oystercatchers were peeping and squeaking. The sound was like that of one of those dog toys you get from pet shops, toy bones or balls. The dog mauls at it and it squeaks interminably. Why were they peeping? A warning?

I continue my look out for new decorations. Another Christmas tree has gone up in a house on North Road.

The boat rigging was jangling and jostling in the wind down at the harbour. The wind blowing at a furious pace, a great rushing and whooshing. The rigging sounded like cow bells.

It’s not my story. I cannot own it. She belongs to so many others. They have more claim on her. Mine was just that of the first witness. The first being to hold her, to conceive of her. To love her. I think of her with all that going on. She cannot know what is coming. I ask for a small part. A small role. A walk on part. And all that love, to let it flow, to let it be. Let be.

It’s life size. A glittering white. A life-size reindeer on their balcony. I saw it as I walked from St David’s Road into Llanbadarn Road. It’s a big house, newly done-up with an electric gate. There was a lit reindeer on the balcony, a lit wreath hanging from the front door and a small lit Christmas tree in the courtyard. It pleases the child in me all this frou frou. I cannot complain. I wish there was more. We always used to laugh at the house we’d pass on the way to my studio in Wysing. All lit up with santas and elves and reindeer. It looked ridiculous but it was heartwarming too. Someone had gone to all that trouble. There was no darkness when that was lit. Not the bleak black that brings me down so. It was joyous, ridiculous but joyous. It’s not so rare these days. Everyone is at it. A borrowed fad from America, of course. I remember the images of lit up gardens and house frontages in those 1950s films we used to watch as children. The birth of technicolour. Christmas was always a public affair. The whole family going out to get the tree. There was always snow. And it was always white, no slush for them. And the mother was always smiling. The father always avuncular and warm. And present. Ice skating looked easy, no one falling on their arse. But it is enough all this, all this kitsch joyfulness. I seek it out as I walk. Another Christmas tree just been put up. I noticed a Santa coming out of a chimney outside The Marine that I didn’t see yesterday. And both The Celtic Bay and The Ceredigion Bay B&Bs have nets of lights hanging in their front windows.

I heard shouting as I walked along the Prom from the bar. A group of lads were playing about with a traffic cone. Above them two of their friends were leaning out of an upstairs flat window and egging them one. Put it on the post, one of them shouted, go on. It was a post with a no waiting sign on it. One of the lads struggled to raise the cone high enough but managed it in the end to great cheering from his mates.

I could see that the TV was on in an upper room of The Richmond. It flickered luminescent in the gloom.

There was a white, heart-shaped sweet lying in a puddle outside The Pier Pressure night club. A perfect white. A perfect heart.

The rain didn’t come, nor did the wind. I had a good walk.

The Why Not? club was still open as I reached the top of Great Darkgate Street. A few kids were congregating outside the town clock. Chewing gum anybody? shouted a boy with green hair, to a cluster of people. Chewing gum? Chewing gum? he repeated, his voice getting higher and louder. A girl in a tiny, low cut sleeveless dress, her arm through a boy’s, was shouting loudly as they headed towards the Castle.

My dreams continue vivid. I was walking alongside a graphic designer and he was showing me examples of his work. They were on a scrap of paper, tiny lines of text. We were going off to see DH with whom I was romantically involved. At least, he’d written me a letter, more a list of questions, to see if I was interested. I wanted the warmth. He seemed, though already married, willing to give it. Then we were in a small office with several other people. A man behind the desk was telling us all about a secretary who was naked as she typed. Everyone was appalled but I heard myself laughing. I remember the laughing, it felt so good to do it. Then I was ordering some food and buying a biscuit for him.

Who knows? So many layers, some inconsequential others of deeper import.

I finished the piece. Now it’s onto the next thing. Two more commissions till Christmas. Will I rest a little then? I await the call. Might it come soon. I want to be there. Can it be?

It is everywhere. Little specks of sparkle. On my slippers, on my hands, my face. They’re from my advent calendar. Glitter always sheds. I remember it as a child. Longing to use some. The layer of glue and those little thin phials of sparkling colour. Pink, green, red, blue, gold and silver. Silver was my favourite. Always. Silver is refined, elegant, not showy like gold. A reticent metal. It knows its worth but does not shout it out. Don’t make a mess, my mother would say. There would be old newspaper sheets covering the table and another piece of paper to catch the bits that didn’t take. My heart would be in my mouth as I poured it. That initial struggle to get the cap off. Make sure you’ve got it back on properly, I don’t want that stuff all over my carpet. Yes, I will, I promise. The blob of glue on the card. A shape of a star or a Christmas tree. Keep it simple. Let it dry a little, but not too much. You need some tack for the glitter to take. There. Now pour. Watch it fly. It’s afire, aflame a glistening of light. I wanted to keep that moment. It always looked better before I poured the residue away. Does it need more? It will make a mess if it does. Leave it be. It will do. It will do. But it never did. It always looked better in my head. The dream of the thing.

I thought of such childhood makings as I walked this morning. So many lights on. Yellow oblongs of light set against the blackness. I remember we made drawings from black card. Silhouettes of buildings filled with coloured gels to represent lit windows. We held them against light. Magical. I thought them so magical.

The Christmas decorations in the shops give me such a fillip. The insurance company on Terrace Road has put their tree up in the window. A restrained affair. All matching. The Marine Hotel on the Promenade has a blue tree, a sparkling azure planted in a flower pot by the entrance. Gwesty Cymru just has two wreaths, so far. One set of rogue hanging lights along Pier Street were still lit as I walked yesterday. I appreciated that. Swanson’s Dry Cleaners has a cornucopia of Christmas stickers all over its window. Santas and elves abound. And there is a string of blue tinsel surrounding their tariff notice. POLLY has large white cardboard snowflakes hanging in their window, while the phone shop has white baubles superglued to theirs. It is a hotpotch, but nevertheless heartening to my soul. They haven’t hung the Nadolig Llawen sign this year. It used to alternate between that and Happy Christmas. A council decision? A majority one?

The writing went better yesterday. It’s almost there. I shall finish it today. It needs to be completed. Brought to a conclusion.

There was a dog in the dark. It was on the beach, a white shape darting about near the waves. And a light, from a torch or mobile phone. I presumed it mustn’t be alone. There was someone with it. I felt a slight frisson of threat. Everything had been so calm. Passing The Angel I saw a police van and a huddle of people crouching over a man and woman sitting on the ground. His head was hung over. Two police officers were with them. Drunkenness?

She told me his daughter had fallen. Twenty feet off the Promenade. Poor girl. Poor man. He is a good one, a kind one. He will feel it keenly. She’s such a quiet girl, she said. It’s not like her. They’ve put rods in. The reflex test went OK. Will she be OK? We hope so.

Treasure this. Anything can happen. The calm lost. I’ve got work soon. An early. A paper review. A little of my own work first, eh.

It was mild this morning. And there were loads of kids about. Well, not kids, students, young people, teenagers. I heard them before I saw them. A cluster of them on a Prom bench. Laughing, talking too loud, they were clearly high. High about being young, with their friends and alive. Oh my god, one of the girls kept saying, Oh, my god, it was like….and I was like…. I couldn’t catch the rest. Her voice  lifted and dropped in volume and pitch. Another of the girls was laughing uproariously. The birds were out too. There’d been an owl. A screech owl as I walked along Llanbadarn Road. No twit-a-twooing, a definite screech, well, more like high-pitched wailing. Was it overhead? It seemed to follow me along North Road. Then there was a phut, phut, and click, click of a robin. Was it a robin? It wasn’t a blue tit, or a blackbird. I heard one of those on my way home. A chirruping, lyrical sound just as I walked past the Pelican Bakery breathing in that luscious scent of warm yeast and salt. A brief respite from the cold. I dread it. The flat is too big and gaping to feel warm. And I am careful of the bills. So we shiver, taking comfort from hot water bottles and bed. But I lack really warm clothes. I want and need some big jumpers that cover my bum. His jumpers are nice but he only gets medium. I want to be enveloped. I’ve always liked that. Hiding myself in warmth.

They had the lights on ceremony in town on Saturday. We missed it. We were in Cwmbran. Neither of us had ever been before. It wasn’t what I expected. An ex-mining town. A little dilapidated but with a huge shopping precinct. And free parking. An incentive no doubt, as he said, to spend the money they don’t have. I watched a couple across from us in Starbucks. She had on a Christmas jumper dress. It clung to her tights. They looked warily at me. It’s because you look so different, he said. Your hair is short and you dress differently. No blending in. Lots of young couples with babies in prams. A noisy café, but warm and friendly. And surprisingly lovely coffee. A much needed fillip. A good day. Full of pleasure. He ate a mince pie, a slice of bara brith and a scone waiting. Waiting patiently for me, taking up a table for four and reading his paper. No one seemed to mind. Lots of elderly people coming in for their lunch. I found him chatting to one when I’d finished my interview. Hang on a minute, he said, returning his attention to an elderly lady in a fur hat. She’d been telling me about her arthritis, he told me afterwards.

And now I must write it. I began yesterday but felt nervous, uptight, self-conscious. Begin again today. Relax, say what you think. All is well. It will tell the story. That’s the important thing. But then again is it important? It’s just work. Let it be, let it flow, let it come out. I booked to do one of her workshops. On a whim. I wanted to return. See what it is like to embellish, to decorate. Another skill, you never know. I want to be amongst those women, too. Warmth. The room shone, it glitter. A balm, as he said, against the dark.

A short dream. I dreamt she had my work on show in her gallery on the hill. Nothing moved. It was lit up, it was beautiful, a beautiful show but no one came and nothing sold. Stasis?

I woke up with it in my head and lay there trying to spur myself to get up and write it down. That’s what I wrote at some ungodly hour and found this morning. Not the Misses Agony. It was of vital importance in my sleeping world. A cipher, a communication from another realm. Here, in this sphere, it makes no sense. A nonsense. A no language. Who are the Misses Agony? And why are they not?

My dreams haunt my nights these days. Is it the moon? We saw it shining through the trees last night. A great white orb. Mystical. I remember snapshots. I was in a restaurant, a dark, low lit affair with two men. It was in some exotic, foreign location. They weren’t really paying any attention to me, though I shared their table. They were discussing where to go for coffee. I thought about the taste as they talked, anticipating it with pleasure. Then I was looking down through the floorboards that were rather like the wooden slats of a jetty. I could see some fishermen bringing in their catch, two of them were waving up at us, at one of the my companions. I tried to let them know. They ignored me.

This is no ordinary love, sang Sade. No ordinary love, I kept singing in my head as I walked yesterday morning. I read her page. My feelings about her are ambivalent, just as they were towards her. No ordinary love, a tricky love, an uncomfortable love. Not always a loving love, or a liking love. I feel her, I feel them all. The burden and the joy of them. Rarely light. As it never was with her. I used to have this recurring nightmare as a child. A man, a mystery assailant was cutting off her fingers and toes. I would wake up screaming, wanting to save her but couldn’t. There was no blood, just this maiming. That scene from The Piano writ large. She would come to me on hearing my screams. Was she kind? I cannot remember. I didn’t want the dream. I couldn’t save her in my sleep or in my waking time. With her it is the same. I want to make it better, to be her balm. She doesn’t want it, need it or even recognise it. And I know I am essentially doing it for myself. I need the calm of it, the making of a better loving, a kinder, easier one.

A good day yesterday. Joyous. I want to write a good piece, a celebratory, encouraging piece. She is young, wide-eyed but full of feeling. And the other women, I liked them too. The seamstresses, the embroiderers, the rag-rug makers. Those users of their hands. Warm women all.

More dreams. I am re-starting my job at the university but the snag is I am meant to be doing a Phd. too. I seek out my supervisor. She is short with me. I cannot make up my mind. I dither. You are full of cotton wool, she says. How about film? she asks. I’m actually into stitch, I say. OK, she says. I walk up and down stairs for what seems ages, thinking, how can I afford it? And maybe film would be a possibility. I meet some women who are trying to set up a stall but have come without a float. I offer to help them find some change and go to the menswear dept. that is, rather oddly, part of the University (a throwback to my interview during the day). A jumble of stuff that clearly reveals the working of my subconscious. I was so enthused by her, by the day. Now I must do my bit, hone it into something that tells the story. Enough, go to it. Well, after I brew my coffee. A Sunday treat.

Not so cold today. A mizzling mist. The simple pleasure of rain on my face.

I bought an inexpensive one. A small one. One that wasn’t too cutesy or commercial. I wanted a traditional one. One that I’d look forward to opening. I’ve hung it on the door of my studio. I couldn’t find the door this morning. The door for number 1. He found it in the end. I thought it said 11. Small pleasures. Small delights. A throwback to childhood, of course. I was a child who liked looking forward and holding back, reserving delights for later. I saved things. I cossetted things. The pleasure was then under my control. I could ease into it, come to it in short bursts. It wouldn’t overwhelm me. Is this a bad thing? I am still the same. Do we ever change? I like advent. It suits me. The waiting. The slow, measured waiting. He thinks I am impatient. I’m not really. Not for pleasure. I am impatient when I am kept waiting. I like to fill my time, no waste. No waste. No time wasters please. Yes, so advent is ideal. It is coming, all that excess, all that delight, but not yet. Not quite yet. He found it but let me open it. I remember that sensation. The pushing open of the little paper door. There is a drawing of some German Christmas biscuits inside. In her homeland they make biscuits for Christmas, just like the Germans. Ginger biscuits, almond biscuits, vanilla biscuits. The shapes all mean something. And they have wonderful long names. I loved the smells around the house. Tired after working all day and then to stand at the oven, my legs ached. Too tired to enjoy eating them, still warm from the rack. Putting them in cake tins lined with greaseproof paper. For later. The smell of ginger when you open the tin the next day. Baking when it was dark outside. A cup of tea on the go. Waiting for the oven timer. Are they ready? Just test it. Soft now, they will harden once out. A question of timing. Waiting by the oven door. Thinking of Gretel. Of Hansel. That perfect house. It wasn’t what it seemed.

Yesterday it looked as if it were alight. A tree in flames. It was Christmas lights. They’d been wrapped around its trunk. Tiny little yellow-white lights, afire in the darkness. It caught my breath. I was disappointed that it was not lit this morning. But there was the moon. Silvery against the sea. It lit my way. No need for my torch. A beautiful morning. Cold, crisp and sharply clean. A police car was humped onto the kerb at the beginning of North Road and still there as I made my way home an hour later. It’s lights were on, two officers were sitting inside. Were they waiting for someone? Pinch, punch.

His lights are often on when I walk. He lives on the hill. High up. He used to be an architect. Now he has Alzheimer’s. It’s common knowledge, probably, though he told me himself when he came to the studio to do an interview. I love your house, I told him. A modern design. A series of long boxes with windows down to the ground. Yes, he said, it is rather special. He designed it himself. His lights are still on. Yellow rectangles against the black.

I tried to still my mind as I walked. It starts immediately. What about this, what about that? Rushing about trying to trigger panic, fear, doubt. Chitter, chatter I call it. Stop your chitter, chatter. Hush. I try to take my conscious lower down, to my solar plexus, my gut. There. There where it is warm. Just sensation, just feeling, no words. Just for a moment. I am just a being walking, sensing the cold, hearing the bird song, that taxi driving past, the sudden gust that flaps at a piece of silvery cellophane caught in the long grass making it glint.

I dreamt I had a child. A little Asian boy. We were both doing our best to care for him. At one point he looked at me with such love. I’ve missed you, he said. Then an Asian chef was writing something for me. A review or a recipe, I am not sure. It was a gift. A gift of his time. I read it as he watched. It was something I could use. A gem.

The house has been cleaned. Dusted and washed. Now to work. Little things to tie up and organise. And prepare for tomorrow. The sun is throwing a warm orange on the roofs across the way. The sky is a clear azure. It is enough.

I am excited about the course. She has a gentle voice. But I must wait. Wait for the right time. 2018. She promised much. We shall see.

I’m rushing ahead of myself. I need to get on with work but I just wanted to write something, to touch base as they say in America. It steadies me, just as she said it would. A splurging but also a recounting of what I’ve seen on my walks, during the day. I need to record it. To remind myself of the bliss, the joy. It may end up being a list of things. So be it. That would be enough.

They had been placed in little piles on the edge of the path. A stone-flagged path that marks the end of the beach. There are often things placed there. Little hillocks of stone, little cairns. This time is was fragments of turquoise painted stone. It looked like they had come from an old wall. Had the sea carried them there, to Cardigan Bay? The colour was Mediterranean in hue, from Spain perhaps or Greece? I love such collecting. A gift. An offering to the Gods.

I asked about her auntie again yesterday as she made my coffee. She’ll need to go in a home, she said. She doesn’t want to, but what with all this falling. Yesterday, I told her, her hair looked liked it’d been dyed. A splodge of red on one side, she said, pointing at her own head to demonstrate the place. I told her, you look like you’ve had your hair dyed, Auntie. And my brother, David, had to pick her up. Oh, I said to him, that must’ve been awful, for you, was it? I asked. She practically brought us up, him and me, you see. Do you want hot milk with that?

I do like her. She’s so warm and round. I love her big upper arms. I wanted a mother like that, I fantasised about the warmth. Beautiful, she is, she said. Beau-t-i-ful, she said.

No frost this morning but a cold north wind. The leaves rustled along the road, brittle and dry. Was that a slight dusting of snow? A wetness on my face? I was able to walk the Perygyl today. It was good to be back. The sky was cloudy, starless. The sea black.

She was coming towards me down South Road. She had on her pink anorak, zipped up tight across her bosom. She avoids eye contact. Her head is always down, her plastic bag, full of I don’t know what swinging as she walks. Is she an insomniac, is she depressed? Do people ask the same of me?

I dreamt of my sisters last night. At least one of them, maybe two. I sensed them rather than recognised their faces. We had to go to a party. We didn’t want to go. It was an obligation. We thought we knew what to expect. But looking through the window when we arrived we saw that there were other people there too. Strangers. We had instructions in our hands of how to behave. A laminated sheet of them. We clutched them to us and walked towards the door.

I heard the tick tick of a blue tit as I walked home along Llanbadarn Road. Are you cold little one? Will you survive the winter. Your song is metallic, but loud, almost strident for something so tiny.

Enough. Time for work. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.

I asked about her auntie. She came out of hospital, she said, but then the very next night she fell again walking with her zimmer. She clearly loves her. I watch her as she talks about her. Her eyes are a chocolate brown. I like her, for all her rocket-fire chatter I like her. Then she fell again, she continued, on the other side. Her mind is fine. I do love her. She’s four feet nothing and lovely. A lovely four feet nothing.

He was sitting in my chair when I got into work. Well, it’s not my chair exactly, but it’s where I like to sit, out of the way, away from a computer. I noticed his feet straight away. He was barefoot. I thought he was my guest, arrived early, and went towards him my hand outstretched. I said the name of my guest and he nodded. Are you feeling better? I asked him. My guest had had to cry off the previous week due to illness. Yes, he said, much better. I’ll just get the studio ready, I said walking off. When I returned intending to put him in the studio ready for broadcast, he and a journalist colleague had clearly been talking. He’s not your guest, she said. Oh, I said. I know him, he said, and however much I’d like to be him, I’m not. When my guest arrived they were the spit if each other. Though my guest had shoes on. Is the bare feet some kind of a penance? I asked him. No, he said, though there are many things in my life I could do penance for. Are you on a pilgrimage? I asked. No, he said. I only have one pair of shoes and they have begun to pinch me. Going barefoot is preferable. Isn’t it cold, I asked. Or do you get inured to it? Yes, he said. I asked the journalist later what he was there for. I’d watched him working at something online, reading then scribbling in a very neat script. I have a story to report on tonight about a sheepdog and the information I’ve been given is in Czech. I asked upstairs. They have a circle of people up there who can speak all kinds of languages. They gave me him. I thought his Welsh sounded odd, I said. I hadn’t noticed he was barefoot till you mentioned it, she said.

The phone had gone the night before at 6.30pm. I’d been just about to go to bed. It’s a bit of a long shot, said the voice, but could you put a guest in front of the newsroom camera tonight? My heart sank. I spoke without thinking. I’m just about to go to bed. But it’s only 6.30, he said. I tried to think on my feet. It’s been a long day, I’ve a head cold, an early night. I’d forgotten my singularity. I’d forgotten that my habits are eccentric. I usually keep them to myself. Can you see if he can do it, if he can’t I will? I said. Sure. He rang back five minutes later. It’s OK, he said, he can do it. So you can go and put your pyjamas on. Was he laughing at me? In fact, he said, when I get home I’m going to do exactly the same. It was OK. You handled it brilliantly, he said. I said no. I said no to work and to money. It was too much. A howling gale outside and I wanted my bed. It was OK to say no. Sometimes you just have to.

I’ve been walking home the back way so hadn’t seen it. I saw it this morning. The tree. They’ve put the town tree up. No decorations yet, just a star on the top. It’s beginning. The first door of my advent calendar on Friday and advent candles and song on Sunday. He likes to hear it. First in Norwegian, then in English. Nice.

I dreamt I was watching this old man and a child in a supermarket. They both had nappies on. He was a little unkempt. I was momentarily put off, but then felt warmer towards, more caring. We were looking at a selection of cheeses through a glass chilling cabinet. I noticed that his nappy was not a big one, not doubly incontinent then, I thought, and he was clean. The details are so distinct. I wake wobbly, so immersed, prised from it like a oyster from its shell.

A cold walk but lovely. The stars were everywhere. There was frost on the Perygyl. It glistened in my torchlight. Beautiful.

I thought it was a cow. I heard a mooing, a repeated lowing sound. Anxious to get home out of the wind, rain and darkness, it took some time before I yielded to curiosity and turned round. It wasn’t a cow, how could it have been? On Station Road at 3.45 am in the morning? I ask you. It was a truck. The mooing noise was the driver working the automated platform at the back. He was standing on it holding onto a wire trolley piled high with pizza boxes. Domino Pizza. He was delivering to Domino Pizza next to the Job Centre. You see I’ve been distracted ever since I woke this morning. It was my dream, I can’t seem to shake it off. And it’s making me see things oddly. All is not quite steady, or stable. I forgot to turn on the radio, I sprayed hair mousse into my hand when I didn’t need it. I am discombobulated.

A dream full of symbolic imagery. We were travelling, he and I, on a journey back from somewhere, but we also had to go back to a place (Nerja) to get home. Lots of going through doors to get to the other side, lots of discussions about and actual eating of food. Sitting on coaches, waiting to go through customs. Seeing the landscape from above. At one point I went through one door and came upon a pantry full of slaughtered animals, well, cuts of bloodied meat and there were the most enormous collection of knives on the block. Huge curved cleavers and choppers. No, it’s not that door, someone called after me, it’s that one. And I went through another and there was a white bowl full of clean water. Then I was hungry and there was only meat available. Other people were sitting around eating, I feel embarrassed that I couldn’t join in and then I saw a plate of dried fruits. I ate some hungrily, greedily, again ashamed by my appetite. It tasted of watery sugar. At another stage of the dream I’d lost him and I was sitting next to a beautiful young man I clearly fancied. I held his hand furtively, turning around to see if he could see us. I felt disloyal but my desire for this man was overwhelming. At one point I even bit his hand. You are a one, he said, laughing. (Was this a response to my listening to Johnnie Walker’s tribute to David Cassidy on Sunday? I’d been flabbergasted by my feelings of exhilaration (and indeed, desire) hearing his recorded voice and renditions of Could it be Forever and Cherish. Was this what was playing out in my dream? We’d talked about it and he’d said it was perfectly understandable, teenage crushes were potent things, blah, blah.) The man talked about which restaurant he was going to eat in in Nerja. Then we were walking together towards it and each side of us as the sea was chock-full of fish. A plethora of fish, so much that you couldn’t see the sea. He talked of sharks being spotted nearby. Must be because of the fish, I said. Then I was with him again and the man had gone. We were waiting in an ante room waiting to go through customs and continue our journey. There was a woman there too, who looked rather like Sarah Kennedy. She gave me a bag. Here, she said, something to freshen yourself up with, make you like a woman again. I looked inside. It contained come curling tongs, tampons, sanitary towels, face wipes, make-up and so on. I was unsure what to do. It seemed like a kind offer. But I didn’t want or need anything. No thank, I said, handing back the bag. I better not take anything I hadn’t packed myself. It’s alright, she said you can say I gave it to you. No, I said. I woke to the sound of my alarm. There were many other aspects. A man we were in a car with talking about insurance and buying a home. He was seedy, untrustworthy, I felt unsafe with him, but the rest has gone.

What an outpouring. I must be off to work now. Trying to not get stressed with all that I have to do. And never knowing if it will be today. Soon, I know. Keep her safe.

I love his stories remembrances. I know most of them. Others, unfamiliar to me, come out of the blue, unexpected. Little things trigger them. We were sitting in the car after having been to the supermarket. Have I told you we go early? It opens at 6 am. We like to get there spot on if we can. We have the place to ourselves then, that is except for the shelf stackers. They are everywhere. One of them was singing to I wish it was Christmas everyday by Wizard this morning, as I whizzed past. You’ll soon get bored of that, I thought, and almost said something. Still it’s nice that he was singing. Anyway we were sitting in the car, in the dark, at the railway level crossing, waiting for a train to come. Mr Pugh used to work those, he said. He had a little signal box right there, he said pointing to the side of the road. Of course, they weren’t automatic then, he worked them by hand. He then proceeded to tell me about Mr Pugh’s sons. It always amazes me that he remembers names so well. Is it because he has never really left here? This town, his town. Anyway, Mr Pugh, it seems had two sons. One went to teach in St Faiths on Trumpington Street in Cambridge. He acquired a really posh accent, he said. And the other was into music. He used to dress up as a bishop. When he was a boy? I asked, momentarily jolted by such eccentricity. Yes, he said, missing the irony. I saw his name under a letter in the paper. Something to do with women’s voices. In the Cambrian News? I asked. No, The Guardian. He’s written a book about women in music. It must’ve been him.

The rain was relentless this morning, as was the wind. I’d borrowed his coat again. And wore my own set of waterproofs underneath it. You just have to inure yourself to it. Too windy for an umbrella. Just bear it. Listen to the spit spat on rain on my hood. Pull the sleeves down over my hands to stop my gloves getting sodden. Push hard into the wind. There was no one about, save a car with its lights on, waiting, the red of its brake lights reflecting bright in the puddles, waiting in the turning circle by the bar. A white shiny car. Young men. Up to no good? Possibly. I kick the bar anyway, lifting the too long coat up over my knees. No one about save a cat. A black shadow down an alley. And a lit basement window. The torso of a young man through the un-curtained window, the sleeves of his checked shirt rolled up, he is obviously talking to someone. Do I see legs stretched out? There is a skateboard, upright and leaning against a chair. I feel cocooned as I walk. Warm inside. Toasty. Just like the old Ready Brek adverts where the children’s tummies shone red. I used to love Ready Brek, the ultimate comfort food, made with milk, hot and with the sugar melting, that layer of watery sweetness on top. I remember the smell of the opened packet, a mixture of oats, powdered milk and salt. A dry smell.

I wanted to stay in bed this morning. I mostly do these mornings. A herculean effort to rise, out into the cold. Winter is a challenge. So be it. It’s just weather, he says. That’s all. So be it.