Category: Writings

She’s an academic at the University, a reader. She’s often in the studio. A bright woman, who speaks articulately. And she bakes. Is it waffles this morning? I asked her yesterday as we parted. No, she said, I’ve baked a cake this morning and will make another this afternoon. I ask which ones. Lemon Drizzle this morning and a gingerbread this afternoon, she replies. She is trialing them for her Village Show cake competition. I don’t ask what village. I wouldn’t know it and couldn’t spell it. But I love the cosiness of it. That belonging, the making, the lovingness of it. She is a feminine woman, her hair a soft blonde foam. And she has tiny feet. Your house must smell divine, I say.

A mizzly day for my birthday. I don’t mind. We bought some lilies. I take time putting them into two vases. They are still closed, but will open soon. Two texts, an email, a card and a FB message. I am remembered, that is enough. We don’t exchange presents. We used to. Always three. It was a bit of strain, though I do love giving. But it is unnecessary there is nothing to prove. We care, that is evident daily. It is enough.

No bookings today so far. We will go then. Finally. To sit and drink tea and stare at the sea. What could be nicer?

Thank you for everything. x

A rushed morning. I didn’t want it to be but all the stuff rushes in. Not important stuff but it’s a race against time with my body at the moment. I tore a hole in my life-saver tights and am now without and the water begins to collect. I try to be sanguine, like he is. Though, like he is with his drug-induced belly, I do get low with it. My legs get so heavy and my knees rigid. Let me heal. I have an arsenal of things to try but I’m in the dark. Should I just succumb? We talk about the menopause, is this the root cause? The doctors can’t find any other reason, at least not yet. I walk with a stride. Movement seems to help perhaps I should walk twice a day or even three? But how will I fit in work.

A nice morning, gentle, a little breeze. A form was sleeping by the base of the bandstand. A form ensconced in a sleeping bag. A radio blasting out dance music was on next to it. The students are back. There are more cars along the Prom and behind Alexandra Hall and more and more bodies oozing out of Pier Pressure night club. One lad was on the ground slumped his arms gripping the railings, a trickle of water emitting from his jeans. Two of his friends were calling his name. Another two lads were calling out to their mate. Was he in the sea? Adrian, they called. Adrian, they shouted, your life is worthwhile. The girls were resplendent. One wore a sequinned sheath, shimmering gold and brown chevrons. Another was in a wide ethnic skirt with a red waistband, a pair of black suede platforms on her feet. I’m touched by the trouble they take. Did the night disappoint them?

Back from work. Archers now. Coffee. And rest.

I took me over all of a sudden when I was lying there on the salon bed and she was stripping me of all my unwanted hair (what a ridiculous process – nature doing what she does for probably all the right reasons and we wax and pluck it away – so be it). I thought how I long to make something beautiful. Something small, something for me, something so exquisite it is breathtaking. Is this desire about the object itself or the feeling it would give me about myself? Is this about pride, about a sense of self or the process of making? Everything has felt so drudge-like over these last few days, grey, shoddy, nothing that has come out of me has been worthy of note. Ah, you see it comes out now that need for congratulation, if only from myself. Can I not escape it? The desire for beauty is innate, I think. And the desire to construct it for myself lifelong. Perhaps it shouldn’t be about beauty but the necessity to be make. He was always making things, said Peter Lanyon’s son of his father on a radio documentary aired recently. Lanyon was a friend of Mark Rothko’s – imagine that. Perhaps this is just my inner workings wanting a balance. I’ve done so much thinking and writing recently that maybe my psyche wants to even it out with making. Whatever that making could be? I am not one thing. I am in constant flux with my creative life. Is that OK? I used to long to be one thing, to be defined by one medium, one metier. How lovely that would be, I thought. To know myself, to do one thing exceedingly well. But I never achieved it. I have a magpie mind or is it a butterfly one? I’ve always sought out new modes of expression. More Beuys than Rothko. I seek the immersion painters talk of. Can I have some of that? Meanwhile I shall keep writing. I need to see where it takes me. To take one another project now would be foolhardy. Wouldn’t it?

A misly morning. They are promising finer weather. May it come soon. I’m in a little of a grey fug. A late (for me) phone call from work woke me and I struggled, wrestled to get back to sleep. My writing is taking me to dark places and my reading matter of late has been grey. I had to put it down in the end. Anne Sexton wonderful poet but challenging mother, it seems. I’ve tried to lighten it on his advice and am now reading The Living of Charlotte Parker Gilman, famously the author The Yellow Wallpaper – but it appears, of so much more. She was born a hundred years before me. We have one thing in common. It’s nice to read, easy, almost chatty. The introduction was fascinating too. With one quote that stood out – “autobiography is a ‘mode of reading’ as well as a ‘mode of writing'”. That ordering again, that Marina Warner spoke of. It’s truth, it appears, is neither here nor there. We make stories of our lives all the time, after all. The writer of the intro claimed that Gilman ‘didn’t not want anyone ….to delve into her dark places’, and it seems she took little pleasure in it either. I’m with her there. I need some fun, some lightness, a gentle escape. Is any in the offing?

He said he’d bumped into her the other day. She used to be a waitress at a hotel on the Prom that we used to go into for a drink on summer evenings with his mother. The low sun would shine in through the window of the hotel bar and warm me as I sat in the window seat. The one at the far end in front of the mirror. It was a nondescript kind of hotel. It’s gone down since the owners that we knew left. He was a drinker, it killed him in the end. Daphne was like an old retainer. Not many teeth, but such a spirit. Dogged. We saw her recently, she was working in another hotel just outside of town. She must be well in her seventies by now and still on her feet. When he saw her she told him she’d had a new hip.

Rain today. I went out prepared. It was warm which was some consolation. Not many people about. A couple were walking their dog. It looked like a puppy. It pulled a little at the lead, its legs were floppy. A spaniel perhaps. Curly-haired and black. No, said the girl pulling on he lead, as I approached. The dog looked a little alarmed. You don’t like people, she said.

Marina Warner is hosting a radio programme about stories. It’s a repeat, I’ve heard it before. She is very erudite, a joy to listen to. Story writers, she said, make ‘something shapely out of the mess’. And so do I. At least that it what I endeavour to do. Though for now the mess is ever present. So be it.

I dreamt I was living in a tower block. A huge thing. I travelled up it to all the floors. It was full of creative people, painters, potters, writers and artists. They all cohabited. I walked through their rooms trying not to disturb them. It was night and they were sleeping, mostly. There were artists there that I’d written about. Painting, there, in the same building I was living in. I was in awe. Also the edifice awed me. I looked out of the window and we were above the sky, it was so tall. We were living on the ground floor and running a grocery cum convenience store. It was a little makeshift. The fridge was falling apart. We shared it with an Asian couple. They were nice and pro-active. Nothing much else happened. It was about discovery and knowing that this wealth of talent and energy lived about me.

He woke with indigestion, poor love. These small hurts assail us. Work for tonight has been cancelled. I can’t say I’m sorry though the money is always welcome. My sleep for now will be preserved. Amen to that.

He says I shouldn’t listen to them, says I’m too sensitive. He doesn’t mean it pejoratively. He appreciates that quality in me, more than anyone. But I need to hear it. I need to know how other people must live. The TED talks. They are fascinating. Mostly American speakers, they push the boundaries of our preconceptions. Yesterday’s one was the most challenging so far. How to think about about the five major global issues – I forget them all, poverty, food, politics, climate change, I think. And one more. Perhaps I missed that one as I joined it half way through. One of the speakers said that the world is due to ‘run out of food’ in the next decade. Another suggested that the way to deal with poverty is to give everyone a living wage – regardless of the work – a minimum salary or wage to live on. For everyone across the world. Taxation would pay for it. He was passionate about it. Oh, yes the refugee crisis was the other. That speaker quoted the experience of his Jewish grandparents being taken in by a farmer in Brussels during the war. We all should do it, he said. Yes, we should. And in my purest form I can imagine myself doing it. But I fall short of that purity, that goodness daily. The programme was about acting, making a change. Are small steps enough? No, they seem to be saying. Can we change? Can we become kinder, more aware, less selfish, more alert to the struggles of others?

It looks like it’s going to be a lovely morning. Let me change. Let me be less myopic. Become open. Kind.

My writing is turgid at the moment. I’m writing of difficult things. It is a black tunnel that I want to push my way through. Just get it out on the page, he says. Writing is often like that. Yes. It is. But I’ve been given the gift of time so I shall use it. It is precious. As are we. All of us.

He meets him most days. He’s a driver for the undertakers, taking the bodies to the mortuary. He walks his dog on the Prom. I think they went to school together, but I could be wrong. His dog is a sheepdog, I think, and he is called Fly. When they stop and talk, one going one way the other the other, Fly waits patiently. But when their chat ceases Fly always barks. It’s like he’s saying, get a move on, he tells me.

It’s raining and raining this morning. I wore a double layer of waterproofs today and I took my umbrella. The earth smells divine when the rain comes, especially when it was dry the day before. Rain, windless rain, like snow stills everything. I like that. A few people were out, mostly coatless. And a few cars, not taxis. Several drove down to the harbour and turned round and drove away again. What are they doing?

Five young kids were walking behind me, probably students back early. They were sheltering their heads under their coats. An umbrella, what a good idea? said one girl. I heard another let out a yell. Oh, she said, I’ve stepped into a puddle. They all burst out laughing. Such simple fun, eh? Reminds me of wearing my orange wellies as a kid and stamping in them just because I could. I hated their orange-ness though. They were so conspicuous.

A lovely afternoon yesterday. I took a bag just in case. And there they were. A little small but once you start looking there were lots of them. Blackberries. A bramble that stretches the length of the path. They taste sweeter, wilder than the shop bought stuff. I had some for breakfast. My fingers got stained purple. It took me back.

Something round and floating was coming towards me along Terrace Road. I couldn’t quite make it out in the gloom. A balloon. A helium balloon with 21 written on it. A party balloon, forgotten or lost. It bounced off the tarmac, and floated, moving slowly towards me like an alien craft. There was something magical, other-worldly about it. Something to do with the speed and its reluctance. Sluggish. Slow. It moved me somehow.

Work now. Keep going, Ellen. I was daunted yesterday. I wrote but I was overwhelmed in the end. It’s too big and I don’t know yet what it is going to be. Can I live with that uncertainty? Does it have to be good?

Breathe. And take one step after another.

I often hear her when I am taking an afternoon nap. She is outside, beneath his bedroom window, calling. She is calling to one of her daughter’s cats. There are two of them. The Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie. I’ve written of them before. They are prize specimens. Grey spotted animals that apparently are worth a fortune. They have some kind of tracking device affixed to their collars. This is connected to an app with a map that shows where they are. They both like to prowl around the undergrowth playing hunt the mouse, the shrew or the tiny bird. They are killing machines. But they are her babies. Her mother babysits for them when she is away. Hence the calling. Yesterday it was Ronnie who she was seeking. She makes a miaowing sound first, then calls out his name in a high-pitched voice. She comes into the coffee shop he goes to sometimes. He finds her challenging, the mother that is, for she apparently talks a lot. Unlike her daughter who is rather taciturn, especially towards him since he suggested that she put something on her cats’ collars to stop them killing things. They are only fulfilling their instinct, I believe she said. And clearly hasn’t forgiven him.

A beautiful clear sky today. The stars were out. I saw a moving one. I think it was a plane. I thought of them all up there fast asleep. Trusting that they will be delivered safely home. A fishing boat was all lit up in the harbour ready for off. I love their lights. A great traffic light system fixed to the mast. I saw another out at sea as I came down the hill to the bar.

Hermione Gingold was the guest on Frankly Speaking this morning. A repeat obviously, I think it was from the 60s. She’d clearly just moved to New York. She loved it, she said. I hate the early nights people keep here in Britain, she said. In New York she could entertain into the wee wee hours and ‘if you get hungry’, she said, ‘you can call down for some chicken. Where would you get food on a Sunday night in England?’ she said. She talked about the early years as an actress and having no money. ‘You had to choose between a bus ticket or a welsh rarebit somewhere,’ she said. I love the detail of peoples’ speech. Where did the welsh rarebit come from? She was glorious. What would be described as a real character, I suppose. Not difficult but opinionated. And classy.

I shall write today. I am nervous about it. I’m not sure where I am going with the next ‘scene’ (for want of a better word). I suppose I just need to write and see. Suck it and see. But it is a good stretch of time. Till 10 am. Till the Archers. Or not. We shall see.

I’ve been listening to a radio programme about charisma. It’s been on daily, early on while I prepare breakfast. It was the last one today and they were discussing whether being charismatic is necessarily a good thing. Not for the person themselves but the recipients of it. The Reverend Coles (ex-Bronski Beat) talked about preferring, trusting, being more comfortable with what he called a hesitant witness. Strength, or at least what we see as strength – self confidence, certainty, arrogance, braggadaccio – is lauded in our culture. Perhaps, as the Reverend suggests there might be another way of being, of seeing.

Domestic duties done. It feels good. I find the physicality of it more and more testing as I age. I want to keep doing it for as long as I may. I like to keep my own home clean. I want no maids or servants. At least not yet. Our neighbour passed me yesterday in the hallway. She is amazing. She is a hundred and she still walks into town each day, usually with some dapper hat on. Yesterday she was carrying the recycling to the bin. She is very deaf and her eyesight isn’t good, but she is still open and engaging with the world. I take my hat off to her. Though, please, please take me before I get to that age. In my sleep preferably. Is it too much to ask?

A new poppet on the way soon. I write to ask how she is. I await a reply. I send love regardless. Through the ether. Always.

The wind was not as strong as they promised, though it was still an effort to walk into it. I wore too many clothes and got hot. Tomorrow I will wear less. The path down to the main road is strewn with beech nuts. They crunch under my walking boots. A man was staring into the window of Andy’s Records shop on Northgate Street. As I got closer I could see he was looking at a particular CD that was on display. He was talking to himself, quite animatedly. It had just gone 3.30 am. I always want to ask the people I see walking the streets at the time that I do, what are you doing up at this hour? never stopping to realise that I am worthy of the same curiosity.

The wanted to do the whole shebang. Weight, height, blood pressure and ECG. Ugh, I hadn’t expected that. I thought it would just be a chat. They don’t make a meal of it in hospital. Just in and out, no soft pillow under the arm. It threw me. And then we went in and she was lovely. A Czech. A gentle woman who was respectful of me and my body. She couldn’t find anything wrong with my heart, it beats a little fast, at least it did when they did the Echogram. Now she thinks it might be something to do with protein in the blood, or lack of it. We shall see. Letters have to be typed first. Protocol followed. I felt embarrassed. I was, am well compared to those who sat in the waiting room, well alcove, with me. Several old ladies, one with greatly swollen ankles that have clearly been forced into tiny t-bar patent leather shoes. Another old lady was so thin, her bony legs, encased in loose fitting American tan tights, jutting at odd angles from the wheelchair. Both were with what looked like daughters. They, looking equally tired, perhaps more so. The rest had clearly come for the fracture clinic and sat there, their ankles and legs strapped up. He was patient with me. Held my hand throughout. I find it difficult. I struggle to yield.

They covered the rock. The tide was coming in. Hundreds of white birds. A flock. Amassing. Their faces all turned towards the south. What were they waiting for? And not a sound.