Author: Ellen Bell

I wanted to stay there all day, by that fire doing crosswords with him. I’d asked for a large pot of tea. A pot of tea for two? asked the waitress. No, I’d said, for one but with two tea bags in a large pot. A pot of tea for two then, she’d replied. She was having no nonsense. I liked that. And I’m happy to pay for the privilege of a big pot. It’s what I fancied.

We bagged the seats by the fire and I hogged it. Warming myself like a cat, stripping off the layers bit by bit. The automatic door kept letting people in and with them the sharp wind. Biting. I moved closer to the fire, toasting myself some more. Two groups of men came in in plus fours and woolen socks with those little tabs of ribbon along the elasticated rim. Most wore ties over checked Aquascutum style shirts and tweed jackets. The gentry out for a shoot. Bold in their confidence, they weren’t brash, just self-assured. He bristled next to me turning in his chair to glare. I thought of the one shoot I’d attended as a child, something I still deeply regret. It was more of a rough-and-ready affair. We lived in Lancashire then and there wasn’t the landed classes as there obviously is in this part of North Wales. I’d agreed to be a beater, mostly because I fancied the son of one of the organisers and had hoped for a glimpse of him. I was disappointed and further dejected by the mud, the rain and seeing the, what seemed to me, indiscrimate killing of squirrels. Bastards, he said under his breath, I hate them. Bloody farmers. Are they? I asked.

But they weren’t noisy. Not the braying multitude that he’d expected. They ate their, no doubt, hearty breakfasts and left. See that registration number? he said. That’s this years, he said, still seething. The tea was nice though. I felt lifted, ready to write. Ready to think. We returned on our way back, dropping in for a pee. The shop was inundated with Christmas fayre, food and decorations and all sorts of useless stuff. I saw several young girls looking longingly at it all, occasionally stroking something with a finger, or picking something up and holding it for a while. I remember such desire. Waiting for him I shook a snow scene, one of little church scene (I think) and another of a reindeer. I used to love them. They were magical to me.

We talk about sherry on the way home. I can’t remember how it started. I recall the sherry glasses my mother had, beautiful slim vessels, with a heavy tapered base with an air bubble inside. They were brought out every Christmas. Dry sherry anyone? my father would ask. Harvey’s Bristol Cream, for me. Certainly. That was his job, doing the drinks. The maitre’d, the host, the emcee, he was good at that. Always smiling, his face creased up with one, always. Till later, much later, then the smiles stopped. The taste of sherry was the start of Christmas for me. Just a small one for the girls, Chris, Mum would say. Not too much. Sweet, sticky, heady and potent on an empty stomach. Us in all our finery, our best dresses, waiting for Christmas Eve to officially start. Dinner first then presents. The smell of gravy. Mum looking stunning, always. The intoxicating fragrance of her perfume, her lipstick, the jangle of her jewellery, the sway in her hips. Happy for once. Can you help me get the meat out of the oven, Chris? Sure. Did he touch her arm?

A flashing snowflake in the window of a student’s house on Llanbadarn Road. Flashing red, green and blue. I am lifted by it. Thank you.

It was unexpected. A boon. It comes at just the right time. Naturally. Times have been lean. I am grateful. More than I can say. He wants to spend it, and pulls my leg. My instinct is always to save. Just in case. Put it away nice and safe. Maybe a little treat. Why not?

A glorious day. I walked to meet him. Shall I come and get you? he asked. No, let me walk. Let me walk a little in this sun. I watched a man waiting to cross Llanbadarn Road, his hand up shielding his eyes from it. Never. There’s always the sun, sang The Stranglers. Somewhere, yes, but rarely here these wintry days. I love it. Look at that blue. My soul rejoices. Hallelujah.

I went. I was a little nervous. It made me cold. Do you want me to take you coat? she asked. No, thanks, I think I’ll keep it on. She talked fast. So much information. My head ached with it by the end. I think it’s going to be good. I liked it there. As well as anyone can ‘like’ an institution. It’s the best I’ve seen. It was clean, light, airy. Most of the floors have to be carpeted, she said, otherwise it looks too much like an institution. We had laminated floors, no not laminate, lino, in the rooms for the very incontinent, but that’s all. It makes a difference. Lots of windows too. And each room with its own shower. Can they have their own furniture? I asked. We don’t encourage it, she said. The family heirloom with woodworm. And think of the fire hazard. Yes, I do see. They all have varying degrees of dementia, she said, settling down into the sofa. No, that’s not strictly true there is one gentleman who doesn’t but he keeps to himself. I’m so excited about this, I’ve even told the papers. I look around me and notice a picture of The Last Supper by Leonardo in cross stitch. Three of the women residents are sitting among us. One has a bruised face, another is sitting at a table, poker-faced. This is a piss-awful day, she shouts. The woman behind the café counter ignores her, as do we. She’s been asked to join in in the art activity upstairs, says my companion, but she doesn’t want to. The woman near to us smiles at us. My companion explains to her what I intend to do. She smiles. That’s nice, she says, it’s good to be busy. She is tiny, her shoulders are like a child’s. On her feet she wears heavily embroidered, blue velvet slippers. The woman with the bruised face stares into space. I walk over to her. You’re looking well, she says. Thank you, I reply, so are you. I complement her on her cardigan. She touches it. She has a Liverpuddlian accent. Are you from Liverpool? I ask. She doesn’t respond. She’s still stroking her cardigan. She looks up. You’re looking well, she says.

The thing to remember is that they don’t see things the way we do, says my guide. She shows me into two other wings. She is bright and breezy, making conversations with staff and residents alike. One woman kisses her. She is wearing pink pyjamas and has bare feet. Are you off for your bath? she asks. The woman giggles. Off you go. Another woman is calling out. We go to her room. She asks if she is OK. I want to go to the toilet, she says. I think you’ve already been, she says. What am I supposed to be doing now? she asks. You’re waiting for tea and cake, my companion says. I notice a picture on her wall, just by the door. Its a series of photographs with the word FAMILY cut out in wood and stuck underneath. It is her. A younger version. An elegant woman with her husband and children. She sits hunched in her chair, her hair a wild, wiry nest of grey. I want to go to the toilet. When we walk past her door ten minutes later she is crying.

Can I make a difference? She seemed to think so. We like them to see people from outside, from the community. Can I call you our artist in residence? she asked. She thinks they will talk to me. They will certainly try to tidy things away, she says. A euphemism. Things go walkabout, she says. Be careful with scissors. When one of the residents died her family found three pairs of scissors in her drawers. She’d been a midwife, she said, I think she was trying to keep us all safe. Perhaps she just liked to have tools around her, I said. Perhaps, you may be right.

The New Year then. Yes. And see what happens. I won’t ask you to wear the T-shirt, she said. No, I said.

He liked it. Wonderful and immersive, he said. I’m so relieved. Thank you. Thank you.

Have you seen it? she asked as she scanned a netted bag of oranges. What? The whisky, she said, that bottle by the door, its humungous. No, we said. Well have a look when you leave. I mean who’d buy that? she asked. I looked around me. Straight ahead were plastic wrapped packages of litre bottles of Coke, ten to a pack, a pile of them, four feet high. And surrounding the tills were litre bottles of Baileys. Row after row of them. At the entrance to store tins of Celebrations and Quality Street lined the foyer. So much. So much abundance. Can you see it? she called as we left. There. It was huge as were the three Toblerone bars next to it. The abundance of Christmas. It is too much for me. I used to like going to Harrods to see the displays, relishing the show, the splendour, but not now. Not any longer. It is too much. Too much for me. I just don’t want all that, I said to him when we got into the car. Perhaps its because we’re happy, he said. Yes, perhaps it is.

I thought he was following me. I’d been trying to let loose my mind. To be mind-less and mindful. I’d started to listen to the sounds as I walked. The rhythmic rush and whoosh of the sea, the wind tearing round the harbour, rattling at the boats rigging. I was loosing myself to sound. And then I saw him. A dark figure in the gloom coming out of one of the houses facing the harbour. I kept on walking. He was a little behind me. I took the steps up onto South Road and but could still hear him. My back muscles stiffened. I walked faster. Then I turned. Best get a look at him and remember the detail. My mind was in overdrive, all peace gone. A small, young man with longish hair, hanging straight around his face. He wore no coat, just a shirt outside his jeans. I caught a glimpse of his face, a sad look almost a scowl. I kept on walking, crossing the road fast onto Mill Street. Flashing yellow lights. Two man working a drain. They worked in silence, knowing the moves. In harmony. The man had gone.

I stopped again at the top of the hill looking down onto Llanbadarn Road. I stood perfectly still. Switching my mind off. Imagining a red switch like the one we have for the cooker. Off. I stood watching the wind blow the leaves of a rock crop, one leaf was almost dead and it flapped furiously in the wind. I paid full attention to the leaf, seeing its disharmony with the rest, bearing witness.

Vivid dreams again last night. Dreams about washing. Washing myself and washing our clothes. A shower became a washing machine. All in disarray, dirty clothes everywhere. No walls and no privacy. A young girl watching me. Someone turning off the shower. Then another dream, this time Audrey Hepburn was dancing. She danced under rocks. It was a set, a theatre set and she was dressed Diaghilev-style, with strong pre-Bauhaus-esque colours. Hard to describe. I was a spectator as was a man and we were discussing the performance. She literally danced under the rocks on the stage, forcing her body beneath them. How hard it is to describe dreams, they defy containment or logic. One just knows them. Or at least I do. Playing them over and over, trying to get to the nub.

Bits to do. Bits to order. I go to the home today. I don’t know what I’ll make of it. Keep open, that’s all. Wait and see, she’d say. Wait and see.

A wild wind. The homeless man wasn’t under the castle this morning. Too cold, too windy? He had a dog with him last night as we drove past. I wanted to stop. But what would I say? We are not alone, not really. Are we?

David Cassidy’s died. He came in to tell me. That beautiful man. I was enchanted by him as a child. Too beautiful for me. Too beautiful. Rest in peace.

The fair has gone. There was no sign of it when I looked down the road this morning. A wind-blown emptiness. All gone. Packed up and moved on.

I’m locked out. You’ve locked me out, a girl was shouting as she bashed on the door. I turned the corner and saw her, just before her friend caught up with her. The door opened and a yellow light welcomed them in. Breathe. All is well.

I dreamt of Mum. I’d taken her to my sister. An estranged relationship that I’d wanted to help mend. Mum was young, younger that she was when she died. She was chatty, open. I’d taken her Sweden. I listened to her talking Norwegian. I didn’t understand what she was saying but I knew all the same. She was happy. I could always tell for I was safe then, at peace. I’d taken her, that was the thing. It was my gift. My gift to my sister.

Earlier, another dream. I try to sleep in the afternoons. I’d never have done so as a younger woman, but I need it now. I rise so early, I need that brief shut-eye and it helps the gloom that descends these days. These winter days. Just as I fell to sleep a short dream, more a vision. A child, a toddler, barely-walking. I was watching this child from above. I remember a romper suit, a dotted, black and white one. It was trying to walk. There were three adult figures ahead. I saw them as a child does, focusing on their legs. The tot was trying to catch them up but stumbled, falling flat. The ground was soft, it was grass. There was no damage no pain except that of being left behind, of not being able to catch up and of being forgotten.

The birds massed on the shore again this morning. Terns and seagulls were there, each with their own allotted space. Some were on the Prom too, scavenging. Scavenging after the students. A bin had been emptied of its rubbish. They squawked and screamed. Pizza boxes, plastic bags, food containers were buffeted about. On the shore the birds stood as if in vigil. Waiting. Waiting for what?

Most days I am a coiled wire. Too tight. I snap and snarl at him. I try not to but I need the release. I cried yesterday. Bursting with it. What is it? What is it? I don’t know. I did the trundling yesterday, I thought I’d be safe. But I’d made mistakes, miscounted the pattern, and then my mind begins its carping. I’m beaten down by it. He comes up to help. Let’s talk it through. But I don’t want to. I want it gone. I’m tired of the same narrative, over and over. Pull back. Breathe. Detach oneself and see it from above, on high, from afar. You did what you set out to do, nothing more, nothing less. There is nothing to judge. You are just completing something, preparing the material for the performance. It doesn’t merit all this drama. I think about why I am obsessed with such a way of working. Is it it’s simplicity? What do I want to discover? I think about interviewing her, it’s her life I want to find out about. I imagine it unfettered, uncomplicated and the cross-stitch and the knitting is a symbol of that. Time, leisure, solitude, neatness, ordered, an ordered, managed kind of creativity without the fear of failure, of being shown up as fraudulent. Is that it? Is that what this is about? Interesting.

And then I fussed and fretted over what to do when I visit the home. I’m meeting the volunteer coordinator tomorrow. What will I sew? What do I want to sew or write? What will I be able to achieve? I think about Vita Sackville West’s All Passion Spent. But is that too obvious? I want the words, the text to tell the story. Or maybe poetry? Something succinct, delicate, like the Emily Dickinson envelopes. And then I went upstairs to do yoga and a play was on the radio. Tony and Rose by Nicola Baldwin. I came to it one third in. I waited for a happy ending, there was none. A son returning to England having left home at seventeen to take care of his dementing mother. All boundaries lost. All safety gone. He enters her hell and vice versa. Can what I do make a difference? Even for a moment? I used to ask the same of myself when I went to see him. He didn’t know me but responded, I think, to my touch. A tactile man, he liked to be touched. Loved. Don’t we all?

I just don’t know. I don’t know so many things. And soon the writing will be here. I am at times utterly floored by it, though I have sought it, generated it. Can I just yield? Let myself fall into it. I could never do that. Let myself fall. I’ll catch you, they’d say. You won’t fall. You won’t. I promise.

They’ve begun hanging the lights in town. There were two strings of them this morning suspended over Great Darkgate Street and just outside The Angel. They turn them off at night. I’m saddened by this for I love to see them. They lift my spirits immeasurably. I need such comforts in the dark. I seek them out. The smell of baked bread from Slater’s and The Pelican Bakery is one, but in winter their doors are invariably shut and that delicious salty scent of yeast is faint. What else? The birds? A sudden eruption of song this morning as I turned into North Road. There is a little public garden on the right hand side, with a bench and a lawn that is often left to grow wild. I heard it there. Was it a robin? I know so little about ornithology. A warbling, throaty chirruping that was met with another, louder rendition. Two robins? One often follows me down North Road, bounding from hedge to fence, just a little in front. Are they after food? Have they learnt that we are bringers of sustenance, or is it just a social thing? There’s one at the University too that follows me up the path to work. And we used to have one in Cambridge that would perch on spades or clumps of mud just ahead of us as we worked. No mass of gulls on the beach this morning but the starlings were keeping up their din. I tried to describe the sound to myself. It’s a kind of peeping, but a mass of it, almost a hissing. The rafters under the Pier teem with them, hundreds, maybe even thousands. It’s an eerie, almost ominous sound. Do they ever sleep, are they ever silent? Even in their murmuration there is that chattering.

Have you put your tree up? I asked her, as I loaded the bags. Yes, she said. No, I said. Yes, she said. And did your children decorate it? I asked. No, she replied, I don’t let them. Decorating the tree is my job. She is delighted with it all. I love Christmas, she says. And will you bake biscuits with them? No, I’m not much of baker, she said, though I noticed the Gingerbread House kit they’re selling here. I thought about having a go with that. With your kids? I asked. Oh, no, she said, they make too much of a mess. I can’t stand it. I like her. A small woman, with large fleshy arms. She gives a little giggle now and again when she talks. A perfect mix of fun and rigour.

The fair has come to town. It comes this time every year. Ever since I can remember it has been here, he said over supper, and always in the same place. I heard it when I went to bed. A distant clamour of music and a voice shouting through a tannoy system. A comforting noise. We used to go to the fair as children. I was both enchanted and scared. It had an edge, a hint of danger. Had I picked up on my mother’s wariness? Run by gypsies, she’d say. And yet they fascinated me. They all looked like David Essex, earring-ed, with unkempt dark curly hair and that disdainful, unsmiling stare. I loved the Waltzers but they would make me nauseous, and the more I screamed the faster they would go. Make it faster, don’t make it faster. A wildness, it was a feral place the fair. Feral and thrilling. Out of our safe living room into that feral darkness lit by fairy lights. A wonder. A fairy kingdom. I wanted to go last night. To try to win something pink and tacky, to taste candyfloss and to come home with my hands reeking of metal.

I think about asking her to do an interview. I could do it in her break over a pot of tea in the café. So tell me why do you do cross stitch?. I want to understand, to get inside her motivation. She has a flat voice. I like her. I feel an affinity, that is both nice and at times a little alarming. What would she make of such a request? And what would I do with it? So much groping in the dark. All I can do is try.

A gentle day today after all that racing about yesterday. A trundly day. A getting somewhere but slowly day. Sew. Sew and sew. That’s all, that’s enough. And listen. That too. Always.

There were a mass of gulls on the shore as I walked this morning. Was it my thrown shadow on the sand that made them move?Taking flight like a whirl of wind blown ashes, their whiteness temporarily lost in in the blackness only to be found again as they turned. What disturbed them? They call and screech and then are quieted. They move and chatter as one. Held together for safety, for comfort. Do they also dread the winter? I heard the lone call of an oystercatcher. Does it too feel dread? Do they fear the cold, the lack of food? Or do they just accept the day as it is unfolds, making no judgement?

There are always houselights on as I walk, even at that hour. They tend to be upper windows, attic windows. Students working? Or are they insomniacs? Or early birds like me? Though I don’t find it easy at this time of the year. The blackness is like a tunnel. I feel myself being sucked into it as I wake. I have to pull myself up, by the boot straps, as my mother used to say. Come on, I say, there’s work to do. And there is, always. I like to see the lights. I like to feel that there are others awake. Going out into the blackness is never as bad as I fear. It is best, always to meet one’s fear, go to it, be in it. It can be managed then. I was fearful of work yesterday. On a Sunday too. Working the newsroom camera always makes me nervous. It feels too important. Make it wider, she said. I don’t know what she means, I said to him. I did it in the end. It’s the not knowing, not understanding. That’s all. Fear of making a fool of myself, of being gauche, awkward, cack-handed.

There was a chicken bone on the floor. I found it when I got back. Where’d it come from? We don’t eat chicken. Had it come from a bag? A second-hand plastic bag? It made me feel a little queasy. I am out of practice with handling dead stuff. Poor lamb. Poor pet.

ODG are advertising their Open for next year. I think about entering my Proust piece and ponder about the how to do it. Should I make a video of me sewing it? Or should I just put forward the piece, unfinished, a work about reading, intense reading. I try to keep it light, see the possibility for testing, for gauging the outside world’s reaction. That’s all. Keep it light. It’s a good forum to try, it is kind. They may not go for it. If so nothing is lost. Ever.

I thought of him as I walked. We have been together twenty years now. Nineteen years married, on and off. He’s been a constant in my life. He has borne witness to it all, so kindly, so selflessly, so wisely. He is my wise counsel, my love. My love.

It was almost instantaneous. I’d emailed them just ten, fifteen minutes before and then someone called. And they said yes. I couldn’t believe it. I even said that to them. I’m flabbergasted. Of course, then comes the worry of making it into something I need or want it to be. Will I be able to take photographs? When do I ask them? One thing at a time. I’m excited about the realness of it. The opportunity to encounter real people, even if they are afflicted. Can I make a difference, make an impact? I just want to be a benign presence, I wrote in the email, a calming influence. Is this just pie-in-the-sky stuff? Can art really do this? We shall just have to see. I’ve learnt to lower expectations, but also to keep my mind open to other, unexpected, unlooked for wonders. They always come. As to what I shall sew, I don’t know. Maybe begin with Proust. One step, Ellen. One step then another. Slow. And breathe.

I dream about food. Is it because I’m hungry or is it a waking anxiety that carries into my dream state? I often actually eat in my dream, though I rarely taste it. Last night it was some kind of plastic wrapped gluten-free bar or cake. I cannot remember what it tasted like, or its texture. Often I’m in a restaurant trying to decide what to choose, or they have nothing I wish to eat. Is it about choice, a choice of nourishment. Is it about creative or soulful nourishment? There had been a clue in the ‘i’ crossword to do with the ovine (I think that was the word) part of a plant. The answer was seed, but we talked about ovine coming from ova=egg. I dreamt of eggs. A great mass of them. Germaine Greer was with me, along with several other women. Most were gay. I think this was something to do with how disturbed I’ve felt over the allegations about Kevin Spacey. I have loved watching him on screen. All is tainted now. It cannot help but be so. His image has turned ugly. Anyway, in the dream I was advising them on how to be discrete about their sexuality in public, arousing much laughter. But back to the eggs. Greer was in turn explaining to me and another woman how to get food. The eggs were the result of some little trick she’d used. I brought her more. No, not now, she said, save those for later. Are the eggs my ideas, my not-yet-born projects? Clearly, Greer, whom I have dreamed of many times, is the wise woman, my counsel. (I saw her speak at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. She was eloquent, funny, self-effacing and utterly charming. Then I saw her at the framers I used to go to in Cambridge. I was too in awe to do more than smile.)

I sent off two other emails too. I’ve been putting it off, waiting for courage. But I need to get things in motion, make them real. We shall see. Sometimes people reply, other times there is that long, forever silence. Editors can be like that. I try to stop myself pestering them. I want to know, want to plan. It is out of my hands, mostly. Let it be. What is for me will come.

More wind this morning then they promised, me and my umbrella gave up, gave in and got wet. It blew at two plastic beakers lying on the Prom. They rattled and rolled. And further along a paper plate fluttered up before sinking down flat on the pavement.

A magpie’s call when I got back home after my walk. I rarely hear them at that early hour. It’s more of a clatter, than a call. Clack, clack. Harsh, rasping. This is no song bird. I start to hear the slightly tinny song of the blue tit now. No robins, as yet. They will come. The leaves have all gone from the trees outside my bedroom window. Yes, he said, but look at the buds. Can you see them? Yes.

I asked her about her Dad. She told me the same story she’d told him last week, the one about him telling her that her grandfather was upstairs and she’d better pull her fucking finger out. He’s in hospital now, the home couldn’t keep him as he needs three people to get to him dressed. He’s waiting. Bed-blocking, she said. Waiting till someone in the home in Welshpool dies. There’s two in the list ahead of him, she said. The stories make her laugh. She needs to tell them. They were so understaffed in the home, she said, that they had to put him in other people’s clothes. They didn’t have time to sort his own out. I do understand, she said, but he was such a fastidious man, hardly ever wore casual clothes. Polo jumpers, but that was about all. Engelbert Humperdinck on the radio talking about his wife’s Alzheimer’s. You think stars are exempt from such tragedy, such falling apart. I ask how her mother is taking it. She’s grieving, she said. She’s lost him. He has no stimulus in the hospital, she continued, no telly, no radio, nothing. He just stares into space. And he’s lost his spacial awareness, she said. He has one of those feeder cups and he keeps missing his mouth. He used to be a business man, a noise about town. It’s come to this. As it did with him, and with him. Clever men, astute men, men of power and influence, reduced to baby hood. She described a kind of sensory plaything that he’s been given, a ‘twiddle-muff’, I think she called it. He plays with it all day long, he loves to fiddle with the buttons. It is so unbelievably sad.

Radio 4 Extra seem to have things on a loop so that some of the plays and fiction pieces are now being repeated. Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male is on again. I remember listening to it in our last flat, working at the kitchen table as I had to do then. I love the writing. It is sparse, cool, cold even. But it is more the description of his survival. He keeps going, relying utterly on his own resources. So little detail. No name, no real sense of place, just the ditches he hides in. Calmly practical. A fantasy of course, unless you are Bear Grylls, though I suppose even he must have an Achilles’ heel. Mustn’t he? I only know him by reputation, so I cannot say.

Tuesday night and Radio 3 play a Choral Evensong live from some church or other. It is sublime. I think of Bath Abbey and feel a pang. It calms me. Church music, and the services calm me, though this last one was a Catholic one so it felt unfamiliar. I remember Mrs Eglin babysitting us and singing to all the hymns on Songs of Praise. She knew them all. She’d take her teeth out sometimes. We went to her house once to see her budgie. She had a little dog then too, a tiny one, long before it became fashionable to have a lap dog under your arm. It snapped and yapped.

A cold still morning. A group of kids coming at me out of nowhere along the Prom. A raggle-taggle group. One was playing at being a plane, his friend was laughing at him. Another was in their pyjamas. They had a dog. A foxy looking dog.

I have a yearning for an advent calendar. I know it’s a silly thing. I used to love them. The traditional ones, not the ones with gifts and chocolate. It was just the process of opening the windows. One each day. Shall I get one?

Time to go and call her. The sky is heavy with white-grey cloud. It’s getting cold out there, he says, as he comes in after coffee, his newspapers in a bag in his hand. Cleaning done. All’s well with the world. For now. For now.

And the cross stitch issue. I meant to talk about it. What to say? I want to do it. Something compels me. Is that enough? It’s feels like a going back to something. Repeating them. Doing the Sunflowers over and over again. Is that a kind of practice? It is if I want it to be. Isn’t it? I just need to follow the path where it is leading me. Something like Rilke said. Succumb. Don’t fight. Let it be. Let it be.

There is a scene in Victoria Wood’s Dinnerladies where one of the customers at the counter asks whether the tuna n’ sweetcorn in the baked potato is separate. Is it tuna and sweetcorn? she asks. No, Bren (played by Victoria Wood) replies, it’s tuna n’ sweetcorn. What does the n’ mean? the woman asks again. It means it’s all mashed up, says another of the girls. When she asks to have them separated, Wood’s character goes into a long rigmarole about there being wars and starvation and that this is what’s on offer, so basically take it or leave it. It’s a classic scene. A satire on faddishness, obviously a favourite issue of hers. Vegans, says Dolly, another of the ladies, all those faddy attitudes. Why don’t they just stay at home with a banana? Chicken and chips. Chicken n’ chips. There was a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken on a bench on the Prom this morning. Its lid was slightly open. It was full. The food left untouched. Had they changed their mind? Lost their appetite? Will the gulls find it?

I heard the starlings under the pier for the first time. A kind of keening, screechy kind of chattering. Thousands of tiny voices, a hushing, whooshing sort of noise. Are they just waking? No smell as yet. It gets to reek. All that guano. They will begin their murmuration soon. A magical sight. A great swooping of black, forming and re-forming.

I’ve gone back to the Book of Silence by Sara Maitland. I love having books I can return to, that I know I can fall into, be taken up by, held. I love where it takes me. Those lonely isles. It is a fantasy of mine, I know. The loneliness is at once so attractive and so frightening. How does one reconcile such opposites?

Too much to do this morning. Not much time to be still or write. This will have to do. It isn’t enough. Yoga then back to work. I want to be still. Soon. Soon.