Author: Ellen Bell

Is it a naval expression? I like it. I like doing it. I like a clear deck before I start work but it can absorb, eat time. Emails, notes, photocopying, tidying away, getting things out. Stuff. Time eating. Eating time. And yet it feels so good to cross things off lists. I still have a Filofax. Old-fashioned, I know. But I like to write things down and my phone is an ancient, simple thing. My Filofax holds it all, images, cut-outs, notes, bits of coloured paper. I like the feel of it. I like my address book, a mass of crossings-out and additions. It is my life, a hot-potch of ideas, of jobs, of aspirations somehow contained.

No more writing for a bit. I need to concentrate on preparing for my performances in October. I am happy to do so. Sometimes this pick up and put down attitude towards both my writing and my making does neither of them any good. Or perhaps it is fine, it is just me that is unsatisfied. Stop start, stop start. I read back what I wrote on Tuesday. So long ago, but I’ve been busy with other things, earning money things. And it is awkward, clumsy. Some bits are OK. But I must leave it, let it go where it needs to go. A complex layering that I long to simplify. It is hard to let it rest, unresolved. I will need help, I can see that. I want it. I want to work with an editor on it. A fresh look, an outsider’s view. Is it any good? I don’t know. It doesn’t need to be, not yet, not yet.

So back to making. I’ve much to do. Shall I talk about it? Two performances. One in the National Gallery where I intend to sew a copy of van Gogh’s Sunflowers in front of the painting. Is it still there? Can I be photographed? Can I get near enough? I don’t know. I have the image of it so clear in my mind, I have to try it. Meanwhile, I have to prepare the tapestry so that it is recognisable as an imitation of the painting. And it takes time. And I’m not very good.

(You do not have to be good, the poet wrote, you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves… I forget her name, it’s called the Wild Geese, it will come, it will come.) Soft animals – that reminds me. I saw a little creature on my way up to the studio yesterday. A soft, brown little round-ended creature. To rounded for a shrew and seemingly no tail so it couldn’t have been a mouse or a rat. A mole? Surely not. I didn’t see side-flippers. It happened so quickly. A delight. A precious sighting. It took me somewhere else. The knowledge of this other world, this ‘family of things’ to which we belong.

So, yes. The sunflowers. It takes me back to being a child. I was never any good at keeping within the lines when I coloured-in. My elder sister’s work was so much better, so much neater. I’m the same with this cross-stitch piece. I’ve miscounted, mis-read the plan. It’s OK no-one will know but I will. I will. And I feel the same disappointment at my apparent lack of skill that I did as a child. I’m just not good at following instructions. Persevere. I think of the women who are. My friend’s daughter, a logical, ordered, confident young woman and the woman on the check-out. We pass the time of day. She’s a knitter, crochet-ter and a maker of cross-stitch. She’s good at it. Does loads. I’m fascinated by the kind of women (and indeed, men) who choose to do such things as hobbies. Such a commitment for an end result that is swamped in kitschness. And yet, it moves me. Is it the dedication, the silence, the inwardness of the work? I want to collect quotes – the things people say about sewing. Make it contemporary. Much was said in the nineteenth-century when women sewed regularly but what of now?

And the other? I want to perform my ‘work’ piece on the tube. A tapestry of the word ‘work’ cross-stitched over and over again. Why? I’m interested to see what my fellow commuters will do, if anything. It’s about thinking about notions of stillness when all around me is moving fast, it’s about the nature of work, of seemingly gendered work (how much more powerful it would be I was a man doing it – do I need to dress up, man-up?) of being made invisible by an activity. Test pieces. I want to see what happens and how it makes me feel. I will write about it. Get him to document it. He is nervous, not confident with the camera. It’s OK, I want the images to look spontaneous, snatched, snapped. We shall see. But for now I must prepare. It is slow work.

I think of the French artist spending ten years erasing Proust. Ten years. A page a day. I like that discipline. That routine. How did he keep himself going, confident, believing? A beautiful piece of work, not only the erased, ghostly book but the dust too. A pile of grey matter. So much to think about but I must clear the decks. Get to work. Switch on the radio and pay attention.

Adieu. A bientot. x

Has it ever happened to you, you know when certain words keep appearing, uncommon words that you find yourself speaking or writing? She calls it serendipity, I like to think of it as evidence. Evidence of a connection, a connection to something beyond what we know or understand. A playful thing. A reaching out beyond the veil, the wall, the ether, whatever you want to call it. It happened a few times yesterday. Ebullient was the first one. I’d written in my memoir and then struggled with it, was it right? Did it say what I wanted it to say? And then it appeared in a crossword I did at lunchtime. The same thing happened with digs. I don’t use the word. It is unfamiliar, a little crude. I tried it in my writing before settling for lodgings, or would room be better. And then it too appeared in the crossword. Is it just coincidental? Of course it could be. But what a coincidence, of all the words…..And then there was frenzied. That had been in the crossword of the night before. Perhaps the compilers are a small band of men and women who confer and share clues. Or is it the Gods at sport?

Same time as yesterday and I’m still a little weary. No writing today – I’ve to go to the studio this morning, so I will do the ‘housekeeping’ work. I’ve quotes to type and ideas to collate and paste into my sketchbook. It’s a lovely morning, no wind and the clouds are breaking up to reveal a blue sky. I wrote concentratedly yesterday – it sucked itself out of me. I just told the story, trying not to fiddle too much with the exposition. It is tricky, she is right I want to see only the perfect and the polished come out of me and onto the screen. And yet, it is changing. The way I write is changing. There is a pared-back feel to it. Economical. Just letting the words say what they mean to say. I don’t know if it is any good. What is good anyway? Who sets the premise? Is it still worthy if it is not? Your work is important she wrote in the email. Is it? Yes, I suppose it is if only for the fact it absorbs my time. My time here on earth. I am trying to work it through, understand why I made the decisions I made and their consequences. Is that worthy enough? I look up the stats to see who reads this. They are not logged, so who knows, perhaps no one. It doesn’t matter, does it?

A few stragglers about this morning. A few bedroom lights still lit. Chillier than of late for there was little cloud cover. I saw the stars. A dishevelled bunch sat outside the Why Not? club, taxis purred on the ranks and bus stops. The girl who works in the Pelican Bakery arrived for work just before I walked passed. She was opening up the double doors. What does the early morning mean to others, is it a hardship to rouse oneself? I struggle some mornings but when I’m out there, the air so sweet, it is worth it. Just to move, to stride, to feel the strength, the energy. An article in yesterday’s Times claimed that forty per cent of middle-aged people don’t even walk 10 minutes a month. Hard to credit it. Sally told me her grandmother, now passed away, refused to walk anywhere, had to be picked up and delivered. She wouldn’t let a doctor near her if he didn’t speak Welsh either, but that’s another story. I love her stories, positively pump her for them. I like the everyday funniness of them. Other people’s families. Easier to handle, easier to like….I miss my mine, as it dwindles and shrinks. Such distances. Do they know? Do they know how much I love them?

She writes of her brother. A dearly-loved brother who has Alzheimer’s. She needs to see him before he ‘disappears’.

Adieu. Till tomorrow.

It’s almost ten to seven in the morning and I can’t tell you how much I long to go back to bed. But this is my time. A day, so far, to myself, in which to write. And yet, the knowledge of this sets me on edge. On edge with myself. An internal battle. A battle of fear. And bed seems such a blissful alternative. I talked to myself as I walked, talking through the usual sticking points. It’s OK to write badly, just get the story down, just write, just, just…….be yourself. My mind is wandering, just as it does when I meditate. It’s had to get a grip on it. Fifty years of fretting. Even as child. Fretting about whether I’d remember to put on my knickers for school, my homework or irritating my mother. Just now my mind switched out, went somewhere else, napped, I suppose and there was a voice coming through my internal tannoy,just your car, it said.

It is a murky grey outside, a brief shot of rain then this insipid grey hanging. More one hundred things? To cheer me up. Favourite things stretch one, confirm one as an individual. I thought of some more as I walk but now they are gone, temporarily lost in the ether. Yr Hafod is still full, Shoreline has vacancies. A few people about this morning. Two on the beach, shouting at me, Hi, Hi and waving. I smiled but didn’t wave back. Earlier I’d seen a girl on a bench with a hard-shelled pink suitcase with wheels beside her side. She was sitting on one of the Prom benches reading from her mobile phone. Then down by South Beach there was a forgotten child’s trainer, brand new, and in pink.

There was a beautiful scent this morning as I walked down North Road, was it North Road? No it was Llanbadarn Road. I stopped and sniffed. It was a honeysuckle, could have been a wild one if there is such a thing. So sweet, like lilac. And stronger in the night air. There is an equally sweet perfume as I walk through the ruined Castle grounds. Yesterday there were two cats there, twining themselves around the legs of a group of students. A man in a Security Company van stopped me as I loped down Great Darkgate Street, asking me if there was a Santander nearby. After what is now over five years of living here I’m beginning to know my way.

The wind was blustery, a south westerly, I think. And what sounds it creates. The harbour is especially noisy. Rigging rattles, sails slap, beams creak, a cacophony of noise. And that howling. I think of sailors of the past dreaming of sirens, undines and other unearthly creatures. It can seem so wild, too powerful.

Any more 100 things yet? Going on trips, giving myself over to the car. Brazil nuts.

So how do you feel about writing today? Nervous. My mind keeps wanting to unsettle me, talk me out of it. And yet, it doesn’t matter.. It is my story, my life, my experience. Get the ideas down and work on it afterwards. I’m at the beginning of so many ventures and I don’t know where either are taking me. Let go. Let go of the need to control. Let it be. Let it appear, write. Enough.

100 things. Sleep. Sleep in my own bed.

List one hundred things, she writes, one hundred things that you love. Gosh, where do you start? It’s not that easy, I’m hard-wired as a worrier, as scaredy-cat, thinking lovely things is new one for me. Make a start. Hyacinths, to be specific the scent of hyacinths, when the blooms have just begun to open. And Night-Scented Stocks. I love that smell too. And Sweet Peas. The colour of cornflowers. Fields of cornflowers and poppies. Porridge, not with milk but just with water, no salt but a sprinkling of nuts and seeds. Hot water bottles on my tummy as I write. My darling boy, my man, my love. My girl. The sun. The light in Italy, in Spain. See it isn’t so difficult. Stewed gooseberries, no sugar, still hot. Stewed blackcurrants. Clean, white cotton sheets. Grapefruit, big fat ones. Oranges, ditto. The smell of freshly cooked bread. The smell of freshly ground coffee beans – the ones in the Monmouth Coffee House most of all. Having my feet stroked by him. Deep tissue massage with the Brute. Sunshine on my face. Drinking Lapsang Souchong at that hotel, feet curled up on the sofa. Doing crosswords with him. Walnuts. Wasabi Kale crisps crumbled over my salad. Christmas carols. Brass bands. Walking on the Perygyl in the early morning lit by a full moon. Breakfast. Enough for now. I’m spent. There is more. It is interesting to see what seems like one’s priorities. Smells and tastes first. Smells first. I live by my nose. What did that reader say this morning on the radio about dogs’ noses? Did he say they had more than one? That doesn’t make sense – I was listening with half an ear. He did say they love all smells, putrid, fetid, rotten smell delight them. Walking past The Pelican Bakery this morning at 3.50 am they had their doors wide open. I tried to describe the smell to myself as I walked.

It doesn’t grab you first off. There is a delay. Then you are in it. A cloud, a thick cloud of yeasty warmth. Today there was an undertone of buttery-ness. There is salt, a moist scent of slightly off-milk. Sweetness. A sweetness like breast-milk. I am filled up by it. It is my compensation. I don’t eat it but I can ingest it via my nose, my pores.

Three boys in the morning dark sitting on a wall. Geeky sorts. One quite large, his flesh rolling over his trousers, the other two small in height and thin. They are silent when I pass by, then the large one begins talking as if there had been merely a pause in their conversation. I’ve literally had my time, he says. The others do not reply.

Tired from our journey yesterday. So many homeless on the street of that city. They sit dull-eyed their hand outstretched holding a polystyrene cup aloft. What can we do? One man was fast asleep on the pavement, wedged between a wall and a fuse-box.

A rainbow family. Two women with their brood. A shared one? I couldn’t tell. A girl and boy of mixed race, a white girl and white baby boy. One of the women had a shaved head with a peppermint tuft of hair at the front. She wore pink Doc Marten boots and a heavy leather jacket. She held the baby boy with such tenderness. Outside the café window I watched a Chinese woman and her white male partner and their child. More rainbows. It heartens me to see. We drove round and round entering bus lanes by mistake. Will they fine us? It’s happened before. Alarming. There seemed like there were no exits. The city would not let us go. We ate lunch in the hotel I worked in over twenty years ago. That same drudge-ness, service was slow, uninterested. They’re eyes only lighting up when it is time to pay the bill. Three floors up, I sat and watched people at the bus stop below.  Glad to return home. Weary. But what a joy to see her. The warmth of her friendship lifts me, nourishes me.

Chores done. Amen to that.

I bring so much fear to the making of my work, whether it is art or writing. Sometimes it completely floors me. This dread. This heavy, stomach churning dread. What is it? What is it that I am frightened of? This is my work, my story, my tale. I do it alone, in a safe, private space. And yet, the demons, the frightening ones follow me in here. Not just in here, in my studio, but into my head. So this is what I shall do. I shall write them out. Here on this page. Everyday, 500 words. Writing out. A purging before the real work is to be done. And yet, this is work. This is as real as the other. Perhaps a distinction need not be made. Is it safe to write it out here? This is a public space. Yes. I believe so. It’s rather like my performances. I am in public, in a public space and yet I am also invisible. Made invisible by the nature of what I am doing. Claws retracted. Domesticated, made tame.

No Donnie-don this year, he says as we walk the Perygyl, I wonder why. Donnie-don or Donnie-doris. Our name, his name for the dolphins we usually see out at sea in Cardigan Bay. Perhaps it has been too cold, I say, or the fish haven’t come. Who knows? Who knows? I register his disappointment and indeed, mine. It is glorious to see them. (If indeed they are dolphins, might they be porpoises? The dead one I found on the beach a year or so back was definitely a porpoise.) They make one feel light, joyous, connected to something larger, important.

A very large spider scurried about by the front door as I stooped to put on my walking boots this morning. I shuddered but found myself talking to it. It eased my panic. Might I be ugly to him too?

She mentions them every time I see her, he says. He’s talking about the geraniums and Margaret. Margaret our ninety-year-old neighbour. She sees them each day when she goes out of her front door. They have blossomed, bloomed. I am inordinately proud of them. You’ve done it, he said. It’s your nurturing. I just hit and hope, I say. As I have done with both gardens. The first in Cambridge, the second in Truro. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. One year the sweet peas came. Glorious by the kitchen door. Inhaling the scent, the sweetness. Then in Truro, nothing. Not a sign. The rhubarb was abundant though, and the lavender. I want to be good at it. To take care.

Each morning I check the B&Bs. Mostly still vacancies, though yesterday Yr Hafod and Shoreline were full. That’s nice. I am pleased for them. The rain has kept people away. It has been too relentless. And the wind. The Prom flags are ripped ragged by it. In shreds. Do they replace them each year? Who makes them?

I listened to The Moth Radio Hour yesterday for a full three hours. It was a toss up between that and Little Dorrit. I’ve heard LD before so I went for the Moth. Such wonderful stories. And told by real people with all their ums and ahs and hesitating emotion. One particularly struck me told by Jona L a writer. He wanted to talk about his shame over a mis-quote in his book about Bob Dylan. He was  publically castigated, lost his job and self-respect. He talked about looking after his young daughter, about why he writes and quoted a Sufi saying, that went something like, God breaks your heart over and over again till it is open. And then there was the Sudanese refugee. Such a life. How can we not offer shelter to such people? I was moved as I worked. Worked my Work. So slow but imbued with thoughts. It is enough. Is it enough?

He is concerned about one of the cats. He keeps seeing it lying down, motionless. It is old. It is dying. It distresses him. I want to do something, he says.

I found another shopping list to add to my collection.

Braces’s Bread….enough said.

Brilliant, he said.

I tried to find ones that were still closed, their petals retracted like cat’s claws. They can be iffy from supermarkets, just one step up from garage flowers. They’re great hulking things. I have to use a sawing motion with the scissors in order to sever the stem. But they fill me with joy. As they did van Gogh. Dishevelled things, even in death there is beauty. And the colours are surprising, so many tones of yellow. In his paintings the backgrounds were yellow too. A real innovation at the time. It is shocking, alarming, such yellow. The yellow of hot suns, of jaundice, of fevers, of madness. I always place them in my blue jug. The blue of summer skies in Provence. I haven’t seen cornflowers this year, or indeed sweet peas. Neither last long once cut. Too precious, too fragile. And the sunflowers, how much more glorious to come up fields of them. This is joy though, this taking of the outside and bringing in. My little bit of heaven.

The sunflowers project causes me the most stress. My idea? Well my intention is to perform the sewing of a copy of van Gogh’s sunflowers in the National Gallery. You know, in front of the actual painting. I want to ape those painting students who stand with easels copying the great masters, stroke by stroke. It’s all about testing. Seeing how it feels, seeing how I feel doing it. It may not be possible. Perhaps we won’t be able to take photographs. Maybe I will feel too exposed, too foolish. But you see, the ideas come in, thick and fast, I can see them in my mind’s eye, so clearly, and I just have to see them through. But oh, the lead up. Such tension. Is this worthwhile? Is this worthy? And I am useless at counted cross stitch. I couldn’t colour in the lines as a child. Knitting patterns make me hot and bothered. I veer away, I can’t follow the rules. So it becomes my take on a pattern, an  adaptation. No one would notice, but I know. I know. It doesn’t matter, it isn’t about the product. It’s the experience of doing it. And what a realm I encounter. Hobby world. All that kitsch-ness. I baulk at it. So make a necessity out if it. Find what they say, these women, who intimidate you so much. The upholders of twee. Find out about them. Make them real. Specify. How does it make them feel? It was better yesterday. For now the critical voice has a new, stronger counterpoint.

Been listening to Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome all week as I make breakfast. So clearly written. And the ending. Ethan and Matty on the sledge, their last rush for freedom, for the thrill of contact, of closeness. And then Matty, unable to walk, being taken in, cared for by the presumed sickly wife. The misery of being the one left behind. The tyranny of the not-quite sick. Then later I listen to Little Dorrit, and his mother, never venturing out, ruling her empire from her bedroom. Air-less, inward, despotic.

As I walk in the morning, my way is lit by the swirling, be-jewelled lines of slug mucus. They dance across the paving slabs, trailing their saliva that glints in the yellow lights of the street lights.

At 3.40 am and I pass a girl standing on the Prom with a group of friends. She holds a carton of Kentucky Fried Chicken in her hand. After each bite she sucks her fingers dry. Each finger, pushed into her mouth.

The sun is meant to shine this morning. Amen to that.

Did I tell you we go all the way to Oswestry for a hair cut? Two hours there and two hours back. Ridiculous I know but it’s only every 8 weeks and we’re cut to the bone, both of us. Like shorn sheep. Prickly. Yummy. I love the clean-ness of it. I feel my skull, the tiny fragility of my head. So tender. Waiting in a garage forecourt as he filled up with petrol I saw a man walking past, a large box of Kellogg’s Frosties under his arm. That’s all, just that. A special cosy treat? I used to love eating cereals. As a child I thought they were healthy, we all did, believing the hype. Cornflakes and Rice Krispies felt austere, as did Bran Flakes, Frosties were yum, all that sugar. I didn’t know. And Coco Pops, my sister’s favourite turned the milk brown. I liked the top of the milk. Top of the milk on top of a bowl of Frosties, lovely. That was then, not now, not now.

We’ll have a seminar, he said. We’ll talk it out, talk it through over a pot of tea. Yes. So we went to Aberdovey to the hotel on the hill that overlooks the sea and drank tea. Darjeeling this time. It was very weak. Only one tea bag for two people. Looked like piss, tasted of nothing. Can we have another please? The waiter with his silver tray was apologetic. It was how I was taught to do it, one bag per pot even for two people. I apologise for complaining not wanting to hurt. I see his red cheeks. But I want to taste. To taste such treats. Later the sun came out and we sat in it. Clean. It cleans me right through. The heat on my shoulders. He was so kind. He gave me his whole attention. There were a group of elderly women in the lounge when we arrived. Four of them. One was talking about a wheelchair for her mother. It was too heavy, I told her, she said. I told her, I’ve got a bad back, I can’t be carrying that. They didn’t stay long, at least not all of them. Two remained for a while. One read her kindle, the other, whom I couldn’t see kept getting messages on her phone. I’d hear the ping, ping. We talked and talked. We talked of writing, of Julia Cameron’s suggestions, distraction techniques for when the critical voice came in. I wrote them down in my book. Dancing, baking, drawing, walking, making a pot of tea. We talked of art. Making art. I told him of my plans for The Parsonage Museum, my performance on the tube. You must write it out, he said. I understand it when you explain it. I felt good. I felt high. I felt whole, enriched. A good day. Home then. Yoga, sorting out his pills then nap then supper. Then the rain came. Torrential.

Dry this morning as I walked but windy. I love and resist the wind. It’s wildness thrills me but sometimes I am just to tired to walk into it. I do though. I always do. I have a long to do list. Things to do that will help. This is one of them. Morning pages. My version. 500 words a day. I will try. Get it out. Writing is getting it out. Getting it down. Paying attention.

There was a hedgehog in the road. I got out of the car but it was dead. Blood leaked from it. Then later a policeman came to the studio. They didn’t tell me you were a policeman, I said. A gentle soul. Scottish. A tender, tender being who cried afterwards. I cry easily, he said as he put his knife-proof vest and walkie-talkie back on. His phone went. Ah, my first text, he said, smiling. Well done, Sarge. Well done. He hugged me. It’s tricky hugging a policeman with all that gear on. Something jabbed my chin. Driving back down the hill we saw Darth Vader dragging a suitcase, one hand texting on his phone.

Barcelona. Friends condone. We are part of it. Part of Europe. How can we leave, beleaguered together, as one? My heart goes out to all. Rest in peace. And the rest? May you find solace.

Blackcurrants on the list. No, the shopkeeper said over the phone, we haven’t seen blackcurrants for weeks. No gooseberries either. Tart fruit. Soft fruit. They’re still picking them on Adam’s farm on The Archers. I miss them. The blackcurrants staining my mouth, my tongue purple, the grainy, almost gritty taste of the skins. He says he will try again today. Frozen ones perhaps.

Autumn comes, I feel it. The air is cooler, fresher. And that luscious promise of warmth is gone.

All gone. Soon no films. Amazon is closing LoveFilm. I am sorry. I enjoyed the spontaneity of it. What would come? We’ve enjoyed the choices. They’ve taken us elsewhere. What now? More box sets. Safer, a known place.

She didn’t call. Did I think she would? She sent a text, no explanation, just a promise to call today instead. Does it matter? Just to know she is OK, still breathing, still here.

They were a tiring few days. It turns me inside out being with my family. It always has. I never feel good enough. My own doing I know. And yet, there is so much love and good will. The children are a delight. She smiles like a sun. A bright shining warm thing. I remember the holding of her, heavy, solid on my hip. And the way she counted the birds in the painting. She just began to do it. Stunning. And only two years old. And he too captivates. Beginning sentences he has no hope of completing just to be in the spotlight. I listen to him avidly. Watching him learn, develop before us. And her, a soft cat of a woman. Beautiful.

Sun and rain. Days of sun and rain. Autumn comes.

Butterflies all over them. Too hot, my heart beginning to race.

I must begin to write. I have to go back. I have forgotten the divorce. It is for the best, I need to find my stride once more. Always this disapproval. Take your time, he says, don’t expect too much.

I heard my name being called. A fellow writer from the MA. He looked well. He too is writing. A book, I ask, he nods. We talk of time. He snatches a few hours here and there. It needs our attention. This creating. So be it. And it is mine. No one else’s, I can do with it what I will. All is well. Just turn up at the page and let it happen.

I will. I will.

Busy, too busy to write this as much as I’d like. Applying for funding mostly. When is the work to be done? Yet, I’m grateful. Grateful for the possibilities. You have to be in it to win it, my ex-tutor’s mother used to say. So I put myself in it and wait.

I’ve been stopped by the police twice in the last week. They drive around in the early mornings, up and down the Prom. The first time they stopped me it was about a missing girl. Had I seen her? What does she look like? Long dark hair. No, I hadn’t, sorry. And I was. Poor girl, poor parents. The second time was this morning. I’d seen their van down by the harbour. That slow crawl. Lights on the ground. They called to me from their van just beyond the Castle. Was it me they’d seen earlier? Yes, I said. Why, are you looking for someone? I asked. Yes, the two police women answered in unison. Not me then, I replied. They laughed. Is it OK to make the police laugh?

A shopping trolley on the beach, it stands by the edge of a bonfire. Flames are fanned by the wind blowing smoke across South Marine. I walk into the smoke, eyes smarting.

I’ve worked hard this past week. Too many late nights, not enough sleep. But the evenings were beautiful, my senses heightened by being out beyond my usual bedtime. The headlights shining on the grass, lit up like a photogram.

And there has been such wind. The flags on the Prom are ripped ragged.

I watch a kite (bird) from my window. It lets something fall from its beak. The next day we find a dead shrew, blood oozing from its neck. Not a cat, he said, they rarely maim them.

I dreamt I was responsible for feeding a hoard of children. Symbolic of my work, too many projects requiring my attention, my nurturing, perhaps?

Finding debris the morning after the Carnival. A dark silence.

I heard a buzzing. He must’ve got into my coat somehow. He whirled around my bedroom floor, disorientated. A bee. I woke him. I need help. The buzzing alarms me. Don’t kill him. He’s on my bed. Seeking flowers, he’d flown onto my floral quilt. I’ve opened the window. Out he goes. Gone. Safe. He’s dying, of course, he said. Yes. He looked weary. World weary.

I’m tired. Eternal sleep would be nice. Soon. Very soon. Will you come?

No sun, just a grey sky. August soon. Need some heat. She rang up yesterday to say that there were blackcurrants. I’ve had some for breakfast all this week. No sugar, just cooked through. They stain the tongue. A tart, deep blue taste. And gooseberries. Even harder to find. Is it that we no longer preserve, make jams, bake pies, make crumbles? Tart fruits. Soft fruits. A sting on the tongue. It is the small things. All else is chaos.

There was a cat playing with a dead mouse, batting it with its paws and throwing it up in the air.

Two young men talking on a bench on the Prom at 3.30 am. I understand, one of them is saying. I understand Brian has his feelings.