Author: Ellen Bell

A line of clubbers are filing out of Pier Pressure. It is 3.30 am. A girl emerges first, and her long curly hair is blown into her face. I can’t see, she shouts, my hair. Another girl, following close behind and almost toppled from her heels, pulls her short leather jacket across her chest. Then a tall, bearded American comes out, wearing a baseball cap and a short-sleeved checked cotton shirt. Ah, Jesus, he says, will you look at that wind? Will you look at that wind? It is strong. A fury of a wind. It pushes into my stomach like a fist. They wear next to nothing these kids. Walking up the hill behind Alexandra Hall there were two girls in thin shorts. A cold wind, a north wind. But the moon. The moon was gorgeous. It lit my way. I am grateful for any light. Even the cold light of the moon. No torch. No torch necessary this morning.

She said yes. I tried it and she said yes. That’s good isn’t it? Some proper work. Writing about poetry. Sometimes I have to pinch myself.

Still no reply. Is it anger? Or is she unwell? I will try again and then let it go. For awhile at least. It’s the silence I struggle with. What is one supposed to make of it? Communicate. Tell me. Talk to me.

I am rigid as I walk. So much angst. So much fear. A few years before he died my father gave me an envelope. Inside were my old school reports from boarding school. I must’ve been between eleven and fifteen, I suppose. I don’t recognise her, that girl, that girl they write about. All I can remember is the fear. Has it ever gone away? I grew up being fearful of her, then it was school, then it was the world of work, then it was my work. Will it ever go away? Will my deathbed be one of a great lifting, a great lifting of fear? I hope so. I cannot see I will solve it before then. Not now at least. The best I can do is try to understand it and accommodate it, live with it. Welcome it in. Good morning, heartache, sang Billie Holiday. It started then, that inclination to create. I was not a star pupil, I barely scraped a C but there was something there. It was a striking out, a striking out of a pretend confidence. Dare to be different, all the while knowing you are not. Then it was A level and I was nurtured, cared-for, known. I loved that. Though the work, myself, we were both pedestrian. Even through my Foundation year, nothing remarkable. I wasn’t worthy of remark. I do remember a drawing of an egg box. It got a good response. I was noticed, asked questions. Oh, you’re applying to Wimbledon. Oh, you have a B in English Literature. And then I got in. And there were flickers. Of something. Nothing remarkable, just flickers. I got distracted. Fell in love. Made a life of sorts. An average girl. Always. From the start. 2.2 material. And yet I persevered. I kept trying. Why do we? What compels us? All those art school leavers. So many. All with heads full of possibilities, mostly other people’s possibilities. Not ours. And now? What am I? Still trying to be authentic. I’ve done some shows that have pleased me. For a time I sold well. People bought what I did. But always this uncertainty. Is certainty, real certainty ever to be had? She looked so happy. She has a purpose now. She knows what is expected of her. I made a roast, she said, so proud, so full of belonging.

He told me she’d seen a hedgehog that morning. My first in ages, she’d said. She likes to walk, he said, on the top. It had been noisy in the canteen. Students? I’d asked. No, he’d said, the girls. The girls behind the counter. Hedgehogs love pumpkins, she’d said. Had there been pumpkins on the top? Squirrels love pumpkins too, another of the women had replied. Yes, she’d said, its squirrels that love pumpkins not hedgehogs. Or do they? He loves it. He loves the rumbustious-ness of it. They make a fuss of him give him the occasional croissant or chocolate brownie cookie for free. Go on have it, they say. A pseudo-husband, a token male, a stand-in to be cajoled, pampered, clucked over. Go on, have it.

He wouldn’t take no for answer, so she and her daughter have to go. They don’t want to. They are shy people, keeping themselves to themselves. A bonfire party. She collected newspapers for him. You must come, he’d said. That’s alright, she’d said, it’s for your family. The more the merrier. I ask about the dog. The neighbour’s dog, Bonnie. Will she be alright with the boom of the fireworks? I think so, she says. Years ago our dog ran away because of them. We couldn’t find her anywhere. She just bolted. There were some travellers. I wasn’t sure, but we asked them. They’d found her cowering and had taken her in, made her dry and fed her. They’d taken great care. How do we know she’s yours? they’d asked me. And then my daughter had come in and the dog ran to her. We know now, they’d said. So kind, she’d said.

I think about ways of raising more income. I don’t want to do cards. It feels like going backwards. My heart isn’t in it. What else can I do? I look at journal and magazine websites. I could do more writing. It feels less treacherous, less inauthentic, as long as I am truthful, as long as I write the truth. I looked at the Poetry Wales website. I remember the editor, she came to give a talk. I will write to her, send her some examples of my work. There was a section on ‘How I Write a Poem’. Fascinating reading. It’s what I am trying to do, to pick at the bones of what is my practice. Insightful and elegantly presented.

The war memorial is red. A yellow light that usually shines on it has been made red. A strong but simple statement.

The rain was relentless. It is never as bad as it seems when I am indoors prior to going outside. I like the sound of it on my umbrella. My umbrella was blown inside out ten times this morning.

Keep it light, I remember him saying, no heaviness. She doesn’t want it, doesn’t compute it. She is a self-contained, enigmatic being. Is that what makes her so attractive, particularly to the opposite sex? An Amazon. A towering beauty. There are many kinds of beauty, she said.

Let her nurse her anger if she must. I cannot do more than say sorry. I didn’t mean to upset her. Have I? Have I truly? My request was one that celebrated his achievements. I was curious. Our discussion that time in their kitchen whetted my appetite. I wanted to see. That’s all. If you must be angry, then so be it. I will wait. I am good at that.

The birdsong is back. I heard it just before 4 am along Llanbadarn Road. Was it a blackbird? We need the joy in all this darkness. Still dark at 6.55 am. And going dark at 5 pm. So be it. I wonder at my reluctance to go into my studio to work at such an early hour. Is it the dark and cold? I want to be cosy.

So much to do but at least the time is mine. I am grateful. We almost fell out. I didn’t mean it. Did I? I just wanted to be nearer to her. A fantasy, I know. Everything is in place here, and he needs to be here. Doesn’t he? So be it. I will let it go. Perhaps we can take a holiday there, he says, instead of going abroad. Yes, I say, that would be good. That would be good.

Euphoric days are often followed by flat or edgy ones. I spend my life expecting things of myself. Expecting too much, mostly. Are you the same? I’m not good at just not doing, accepting that this day or that day is a down one. A coming down one from being so happy. Too happy. Can one be too happy? It brings me peace, you see, just to be with her. There is nothing complicated about us when she is in my sight. I asked her questions. I asked her everything. She was nonplussed by my interrogation. She was honest, open. My darling, darling girl. Can you know how I love you? And yet, I don’t know you. Not properly, not the day-in-day-out kind of knowing, the way I know him. Even so, there is this well, this deep, deep well of love. Can we move, my love? Can we move to where she is? I want those flying dreams that being with her bring me. Nothing else is as important. Can you see that? Can I ask it? Can I ask you to uproot yourself for me? Ah, I don’t know, I know nothing. Nothing.

My thoughts were about my work as I walked. Trying to solve it, solve the puzzle as I walk. My mind is stimulated by the movement, by the fresh air, the sea. What is it I want? I woke intent on trying to let be, just be. Let it fall away. Do not direct life, just let it be. It is hard for me. I like, no need to be, in control, to manage everything. To anticipate problems, to be ready with a solution. What if there is none? No solution, just a continuum of searching. What is it you want to do? To be involved, to be engrossed, to be at work. I need to work. I need to do, to be actively involved in something meaningful. And yet, I must now provide the meaning. Strip away its commercial viability and what do you have? A hobby? No, I thought, as I hung the washing on the airer, it is not a hobby, it is too important to me, it absorbs too much of my waking life to be relegated to a mere hobby. What is it then? A doing thing, something I do in order to be myself. Is this just wank? Excuse the language, but is it? I want this stripping-down, it is timely, but it is also painful. For by stripping the sense of oneself down, one is also questioning one’s ultimate purpose. Nurses, doctors, midwives, freedom fighters have a very direct purpose. They save, they protect, they alter the course. What of artists? What do we actually do? There are others who either chose not to, or could not, make a living from their art. Emily Dickinson, Vincent van Gogh, neither Emily or Ann Bronte, I believe made any money from their books. Emily, in particular wrote secretively, hated the idea of fame. And yet, do we not all crave some sort of notice. To walk invisible. Yes. That I understand. But the critical stuff, the response. I need to work for others. Not for their recognition but to be in their presence. To make a shift, to make a murmur of a difference. I think about performing my sewing in old people’s homes, hospitals, hospices. Only to baulk at the idea that I might be using them. I need to talk more about this. Yes. But work calls. Needs must. Needs must when the devil……

I got it wrong. I’m not good at the logical stuff, the lateral, linear stuff. The clocks went back so the mornings are lighter not darker, though it is hard to tell the difference. Winter creeps forward and I am already chilled by it. I am tired today, snappy and cross. Such a long journey but such a good, important trip. I needed it. I needed to see her, love her. She looked beautiful, brimming over with joy. That is enough, isn’t it? I made her laugh. She was relaxed and so was I. The sun shone. It was joy. And that night I flew. I soared, swooped. A few nights before in my dream I had climbed to the ceiling of a large railway waiting room and expected to fall. When I let go of my hand-hold of the cornicing, I thought I’d fall but I didn’t. I was suspended. Even in my dream it felt odd, where was my gravity, my ballast? But the night before last the flying was for real. I dived, hovered and soared over an urban landscape. I wasn’t meant to be out, was meant to stay in but I went out flying instead. It was marvellous, joyous. An expression of my joy about her, I think. Don’t you?

You got a lighter? he was saying. It took a moment before I realised he was talking to me. You got a lighter? he repeated, though he didn’t pronounce the ‘t’. He was with a friend, they were dressed identically, in black hoodies. No, I said, I’m sorry I haven’t. That’s alright, he said, no need to apologise. He spoke slowly, drawing out the words. No need to apologise. No need.

It was a lovely walk into the town, all downhill. You get about halfway down the hill and suddenly there is the bay, a curving wall of lights reflected on the water. Stunning, even in the dark. The town is poky, clustered, but the harbour sweeps out to sea. I love it. I could live here, I told her. It is always the same. It’s the light. And now I have another reason.

We had fun didn’t we? Laughing, cosy-ing up under the duvet, a picnic in your room. Laughing about the cold. And I had my walk, ending it with a caress of the Barbara Hepworth statue.

He was hard on me. I needed it. Though I really wanted him to be soft. I have to make it clear to myself or there will always be this vacillating. When I talk to him about it it all makes sense. I know I’m right, he says. Yes, you are, you always are. And I love you for it.

She was there when I left the house, a figure in the gloom. It’s funny how you can tell when someone is awry, lost. It’s in the stance. Are you OK? I asked her. I think so, she said. An old woman, her hair unkempt. She wore ankle socks and an anorak that was unzipped. Are you lost? I asked again. No, she said. She’d walked towards me, seeking reassurance, I think. I walked on and heard her scuffling behind.

A gull flew across the skylight as I lay on the carpet doing yoga.

When we got home there were four or five spatters of green bird shit on his windowsill. How could that be? I said out loud. Nothing on the window. No sign of any distress. Did a bird come in? How could it, the window is too narrow? A mystery. A mystery. An omen, an omen of death in a house. Could it be? He had bird shit on his coat, several white blotches. Good luck, I said, that’s good luck. Get the girls to get it off for you, I said. Yes. Do the lottery, boy, she said to him. Do the lottery.

Home with all this stuff to do. Breathe. All will get done. All will get done.

The sun won’t rise now till 8 o’clock. It is still pitch outside. An extra hour in bed was spent awake. Honestly, your body clock, she used to say. Darker mornings, lighter evenings but not for long. Not for long. In my northern home it is getting darker and darker. It feels like entering a tunnel, a tunnel that tapers and there is no light, no light at the end.

The street lights don’t know that the clocks have gone back and they came on as usual at 4.45 am but it was 5.45am. It was nice not to have to fumble for my torch. Lights are a blessing in the dark. Some people call it pollution, I call it friendly. I love to see the lights on the fishing boats as the chug out to sea, greens, reds and yellows like traffic lights. And the line of lights marking Aberdovey’s coast, way out beyond Cardigan Bay. Nothing this morning, too black, the cloud too low. And then down by the harbour, the other side of the Bay, Aberaeron’s lights. Twinkling lines of yellow stars. Such a comfort. Walking down towards the station on my way home there was a lit door window. It was an oblong of patterned glass, a lozenge of warm yellow in a thick oak door. It pleased me. Lifted my spirts in the drizzly rain. A grey town in the winter. Soon there will be Christmas lights, I thought. Soon.

I don’t usually look at them, there are so many in my inbox. This time I did. A job. I know the journal, I write for it. Why not? A part-time post. Some extra money. Why not? So I emailed with questions. When he woke I told him about it. He looked serious. Asked questions. Do you want it? he asked I went through all the scenarios in my head. Was it possible? Then he went on their website. Have you read this? he asked. Too much. Too specific. It wasn’t for me. I felt foolish, it was too knee-jerk. I understand now. I understand better now. It is about self-worth. A job is neat. I could’ve offered it up. Ah, yes. Something proper. Something useful, something that brings in money. That’s good. And all else will be forgotten. I know what would’ve happened, he said. You’d give more of yourself than required to make up for your lack of experience. It would take up all your time. He is right, of course. I would. Over compensating. Always. What do you want? To be here, to work at home, to make my art. To be me. So why, if I have it, and I do, do I not value it? I wobble so easily. Has it always been so? There is so much I want to do with my work, I tell him. Good, he says, so do it. Do it. Keep steady, my love. Let it be. Let what is, be. Leave it alone. We have enough, he says. We have enough. Enjoy it, be at peace. A good lesson? Who is harmed? Who cares what they think? he says. Who cares?

I am good enough. I am allowed to choose. I am allowed to be this, this me.

The radio broadcasts a programme about Donald Crowhurst. Was it the solitude that sent him mad? Was it madness that made him fake his course and pretend to win? Or the desperate action of a desperate man. A quiet and modest life brings more joy, wrote Einstein. How do we balance the need for challenge with the need for peace. I work on my sewing, a modest occupation, and at the end of each day I ask, is that it? Is that enough? And yet, so much has been experienced, so many journeys in my head. The pendulum was doubtful, lack lustre. But I wanted an easy answer. And yet, I know that it isn’t a change of place, job, situation but an inner alteration. A change in thought pattern. That is the shift. The shift towards acceptance. Wear orange, they used to say, over and over. Accept yourself. Accept what is. All that moving about, all that searching. The answer is here, now, in this moment. There is nothing else. Nothing. Let it be.

Town was full of them. Scurrying, hurrying against the wind. Students in hoards, mirrored in the sky by gulls, squawking. Empty pizza boxes scudding along pavements, fish and chip papers flattened against post boxes, bins and lamp posts. A girl with cat ears and whiskers, another with sparkly devil’s horns. Boys in t-shirts, running. The harbour is quiet. I begin to breathe down there. The sea is marvellous, the tide is coming in.

I saw a jay through his window. A portent, the man with the beard, who always reeked of garlic, used to say.

He was just closing his window as I approached, I smelt the smoke of his cigarette. I must remember to unlock their cupboard. Must remember. So much minutiae. Enough. Empty it out.

The sky is turning now, a beginning of blue and it’s not yet 7. Amen to that. Light. Let it be.

The sun shone into my studio yesterday. Pure joy.

They sent a copy of the magazine. Usually they only send me one when I have a review in it. Was it a peace offering, on account of their being so tardy with the payment of my invoices? A nice gesture whatever the reason. I read it at work. So many exquisitely small things. Why do I still get so unsettled by other people’s talent? I need a ballast. I need to steady myself. And then the voice came through, not loud but gentle and clear. This is what I do, it said. That is what they do, this is what I do. Yes. It is like beauty. Another’s beauty can seem so overwhelming perfect, so beyond ourselves. But that is their beauty, what about ours? What about mine? We each have it. We each have some kind of beauty. Something unique, intrinsically ourselves. It could be the smell of our skin, the thickness of our hair, the roundness of our hips, the narrowness of our ankles. There is something. It just needs to be found, seen and celebrated. This isn’t some new-age claptrap promulgated by Kate in The Archers. I mean it. I believe it. I look for it often. In others. Why not myself?

What shall we do about the film? he asked. Scrap it? I said. Yes. he said. Let’s send it back. So we did. I don’t like giving up on things but it was terrible. Perhaps we are the wrong age-group. None of the characters meant anything to me. And the inconsistency of accents – where they Danish or American? – made it all rather ridiculous. I’m not comfortable watching something for the sake of it. Is it a good thing to end on a bad one?

I need my sleep, I always have. I have to find some of the hours during the day. To make up the eight. I rarely do, make up the eight. Seven and a half is the most I can manage. But I am productive. The second load of ironing was done before breakfast, as was the bed change. I like the order. I like to run our home with order. But the voices niggle. I shouldn’t be so fastidious, if I was a proper artist, blah, blah….All those myths about disorder equalling creativity. I swallowed them, hook, line and sinker.

Two boats I missed in the roll call yesterday, Perseverance and Miss Me. Miss Me has been there for months. For a while it had a for sale sign, spelt ‘fore sail’. A little joke. A mariner’s play on words. Just like ‘baited breath’. How we laughed. Rather like The Independent’s daily crossword. Ah…. he says, every time. Miss Me is in a shabby state. Is it a question or a plea? It’s paint is peeling, it’s colour almost gone.

The marina boats’ rigging flapping in the wind sounded like cow bells. A remembered sound from the early 1990s when I visited Oberlangenhard in Switzerland. Clang, clang.

The dinghies have been lined up, up-ended like sponge fingers in a tiramisu.

A girl crouched in the road, reading her mobile phone.

A day in which to work. That is good. I need it. So many ideas, so many projects. And now I am wobbled again by an advertisement for a freelance job. Shall I apply? I don’t know. The steady money would be nice. I just don’t know. I cleave to this freedom and yet, there is so much fear. Ever thus, my love. Ever thus.

My feet were cold last night. It kept me awake. Still dark at seven. Still dark.

I dreamt that I was trying to swallow a pill. It wouldn’t go down. In the end I had to spit it out. It was black. A dream full of food. Was I hungry? Or was it more symbolic than that? I was eating scones while riding a bike. I don’t eat scones and it felt wicked. I ate one than began on the second. I can’t remember tasting them. Can you taste in dreams? It was too much. I put half in my pocket. Then I was in the usual shopping mall. You know the kind, where there is no daylight. A nether world of electric light and white endlessness. We, a group of us, where trying to find somewhere to eat. A continuing theme in my dreams, and indeed my life. What to chose? What will please? What do I want? At least there is lots of choice. We found a restaurant but I had in mind something else, something fresher, I wanted salads. Prosaic stuff. I remember noise, and hurry, and a sense of something more. Oh, and there was a flat, a stranger’s home with lots of young children. I didn’t see them but their things were there. I counted them. Were they toothbrushes? A modern day fairy tale. The seven dwarves? Enough. Dreams make no sense when transcribed.

The boats are out of the water. A sign of winter. They are on stilts down the harbour. I tried to memorise the names. Here we go: Red Herring, Celtic Spirit, Tioga, Lillian, Baited Breath and Oyster Catcher. I whispered them as I walked. The harbour path feels different. The stilted boats flank either side of it. Mountains in the dark. I love them. I love their vulnerability out of the water. I love the idea that they will be cared for, repaired, repainted, prepared for next year’s work. Safe. They are safe and dry. A working harbour, that smells of fish. The lobster pots pile up. Ready. Housekeeping.

Housekeeping today. Hoovering and mopping floors and dusting. And two loads of washing. I’ve already done one load of ironing already. It creeps up. I send it to the end of the week. Get it done. Then I make tea, not coffee. I’m off coffee for a bit. It has become bitter. Then I call her. I think of her often. Will we ever meet? Will that break or seal the intimacy? She has a particular way of saying my name.

The door downstairs keeps being left open. The chill of the night will take my geraniums. And they give such pleasure. I must let what will be be. They don’t mean it. Selfish, he says. Just selfish. No, they just don’t think. Pizza boxes strew the pavement. Boys in t-shirts eat them on the way home from The Angel or the Why Not?

A story. I caught a story on the radio after I came back from work. Should I work a little before doing yoga, is it worth it? No. So I listened instead. Caught it by chance. Bethlehem House I think it was called. An old lady coming back to visit the orphanage she was sent to. Run by nuns. A terrible place. She was a wee bird now. Back from Australia with her daughter. She remembers being punished for wetting the bed. The place has changed, has become a retreat. I don’t remember a garden, she says. She learnt to be clean. Always cleaning. Always picking up crumbs. That’s were the scones come from. At the end she has tea. She sits in the sun eating scones. She has two. The tiny bird has two and doesn’t care that the crumbs fall.

Let me read you this, he said at breakfast this morning. It’s in The Times, a note that Einstein wrote in a hotel about happiness: ‘A quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest’ Read it again, I said. And he did. You should write it down, he said. And I have. I’ve cleared my noticeboard of all those things, some important, others not so, to make a space for it. Just that. An A4 sheet with that quote. I like it. It’s what I need at this time, this moment. Such gifts always come. I was unsettled yesterday, you see.

We’d planned to vacate the flat for the morning while the electrician came to fix the Expelair in my bathroom. Neither of us like strangers being here. It unsettles us. And I struggle to concentrate on my work. It’s better that we go out and leave them to it. When we got back he hadn’t come. And so I felt I’d wasted my time. We’d had coffee and gone shopping for her. Gifts for her. An important milestone, I wanted to feel part of it. Make it real. It didn’t work. It felt excessive, a little chaotic. I didn’t know what she needed, what she would want. It wobbled me. And then we went in search of a tripod for the IPhone camera so that I can begin filming myself working. No joy. Nothing. Another waste of time.

It’s still work, he said. later that afternoon. Don’t be so hard on yourself. I keep comparing what I do to others, to people in proper, regimented jobs. And yet, as I talk it through with him I realise that I do far more than I realise. All those hours writing emails, doing my accounts, chasing invoices, ordering material, it’s work. It is work. I wasn’t only working when I was teaching, he said, as I lay on the bed next to him. There was all the preparing, seeing students, and the thinking about it. The thinking about it is work too, you know. I know. And I think about my work all the time. That is unless I am worrying.

I worried this morning as I walked. How to deal with her. How to be kind. How to make sure that it is returned. Fretting about money. Why has that started again? I think it is because I haven’t made much these last few months. Holidays you see. Self-employed has its joys but when you are not there to work you don’t earn. So be it. We have enough. But it is more than that, it’s about self worth. My sense of self is so wrapped up in how much I earn. It is an old paradigm. It needs throwing out. It is old stuff. Old hat. A has-been of a thought. I do what I do. Wealth will come from it when it is ready. I am blessed with abundance in other ways. We manage. And we are budgeting. Is that part of the problem? Am I concentrating on what we can’t have rather than what we have?

Thrift. We go shopping with a limit. Things may have to go back. Do you remember that? Many, many people have to do it, why shouldn’t we? It is an exercise in restraint. It suits me, it always has. Excess scares me. We are doing OK. It was just over this morning. Two pounds. A slippery slope, he said to her on the till. A slippery slope. No, it’s OK, I said, we were two pounds under last time. Slippery slope, he said. And then I forgot the bread. The conditioner will have to go back. So be it. Rigour, she used to say. Yes, perhaps. It’s about intention. I have it.

A quiet and modest life. Yes. Let it be.

Stand up! A student is shouting at his friend, who lies curled up in a foetal position halfway down Great Darkgate Street. Stand up! His voice is pleading now as he pulls at the boy’s jacket. Stand up you fucking dick! I’m not doing this all night. He is still shouting as I reach the bottom of the street. Should I have helped him? Don’t get involved, he tells me time and time again when I regale him with tales of students falling in the road, or lying fast asleep in gutters. The boy sounded so distressed. There was a police van parked up just beyond The Angel, hadn’t they noticed him? They drink themselves into oblivion. Why? Is it just that it is fun or is there some darker motive? There was a girl lurching along North Road, wearing nothing but a mini skirt and a short sleeveless top. She talked on the phone as she meandered her way home, hiccupping.

She thought my name was Kate. He told me of it when he got home. Kate. Could I be a Kate? For a moment I thought about it. It might be nice to be someone else, just for a short time. How would that feel?

He came to talk about the National Library. They were to light it up purple last night. Something to do with the Polio charity, he said. A nice man. Jolly. A big rugby player. I’d been expecting someone else, someone more effete. He’s a technician, I think. We’ll just put some coloured gels over the security lights, he said, that’s all. I saw it this morning. A rather under-rated affair. I remember when The Belle Vue hotel lit up with the colours of the tricolor in response to first terrorist attack in France a few years ago. It moved me. A simple act of solidarity. No words. Symbolic. Powerful. The Nat Libs attempt was a little like a damp squib. Still it’s something I suppose. He enjoyed talking about it. Good to get the publicity, he said. Anytime, he said. Anytime you want a gobby sod, I’m your man.

I knew someone in Bath who went around photographing heart shapes around the city. It could be anything a piece of chewing gum, a stone, a smattering of moss, a leaf, a puddle, anything. Once you do that you start seeing them everywhere.

He said no. I thought he would, but I appreciate him trying. That was a nice thing. Try something else, something quieter. I think that is better, more me.

I wrote it in a day. I hope she is happy with it. I took risks. I worrit away over it. I always do. Could I have made it better? Yes, probably but it is what it is. Let it be.

Coffee. Yes, please. Coffee and crosswords, an indulgence. I worked hard yesterday, though it never seems enough. No rain this morning, just fresh air. Lovely. Our last film is on its way. Sad. I will be sad. What will come in its place? Work? Enough. Coffee.

Wait! shouted a disembodied voice in the darkness. I had just walked down along the harbour. Wait, it shouted again. Then laughter. Hey guys, wait. More laughter. Everyone, wait. I continued up the steps to onto South Road. I heard them behind me, down below. Three, four of them. In the top floor of a house ahead a girl was sitting at a window, her face lit by the screen of her mobile phone.

The Prom was not a bad as I’d expected. The middle part is closed off, too scattered with stones and sand to be driveable, and a small section of the pavement has been battered, broken away but other than that it is in tact. Aberystwyth is very much open for business, said the councillor as I settled him into the studio, despite all the news coverage. They’ve just said that we’d had the strongest winds, she said after listening to the Welsh news, 78 miles an hour. She then went on to tell me that she’s seen two teenage girls going walking down to the jetty in the worst of it. I tried to shout at them, she said, but some one got there before me. Stupid. And I wasn’t going to go in after them. We all did it, he said later. It’s what kids do. Yes, I suppose it is. People check in at The Richmond, the councillor had said, when they know a storm is coming just to be in the thick of it.

I lost my temper. I knew it was coming. I heard him call out and then I heard the panting. It circled me and then jumped up scratching at my legs. I lost it. No! I shouted, glaring at it. It crouched down, his eyes gleeful. Is this a game? No! I shouted again, my forefinger erect and threatening. For a brief second I saw myself reincarnated as my mother. It’s owner, had by that time, caught up with it and was at my side breathing heavily. Sorry, he said. I don’t like it, I said. I don’t like him jumping up at me. I’m sure that he is a lovely dog but isn’t it possible to put him on a lead? Sorry, he said, scooping the sheepdog puppy into his arms. It was a she. Come on Pippa, he said, offering me a rueful smile. I was shaken. I told him about it later. Good, he said. I don’t feel comfortable losing my temper. Something of my equilibrium is lost. I feel almost shameful. It’s just not what I am used to. Mum’s dogs, and they were always ‘hers’, were always impeccably behaved. Woe betide if they hadn’t been. It is too chaotic. He lets it run around the estate, he said. Willy nilly. It’s always jumping up. It’s the unexpectedness of it, that’s all. The dog is joyful, that’s all. In love with life. But it is too much for me. It’s like kids, wild kids, I run a mile. I’m used to rigour, control. I am sorry. Sorry I lost my temper. I will do better, next time.