I remembered what I meant to say about my walk yesterday. As the rain poured down on me, I’d thought about Jane Austen and how I read in some of her letters of her intermittent frustration when bad weather and dirty roads kept her from walking. Striding out was clearly both a pleasure and necessity to her – she needed to get out, away from that to small house of women and feel the air, the freshness and the freedom from domestic obligations. Perhaps it also helped her think about her writing. They didn’t have what we have now. Umbrellas yes, but no waterproofs or rain-resistant shoes. They were shod so inadequately. And people got wet, and sometimes died from it. I do love to dress up cosy, but even I in this wild and windy place cannot keep all the elements out.
And there are still three tents on the Prom, those small one-man affairs that are slightly domed. They used to be hitched on the beach but the crashing waves evidently were too much for them. I watched them being buffeted this morning. Poor loves, how can they sleep? There was a row of wheeled shopping carts neatly aligned by the railings next to them (there worldly belongings, clearly). The tents, blue, orange and yellow ( I think) made me think of wobbling jellies or blancmanges. And the effete, bookish homeless man had moved his sleeping bag and himself to the other side of the Prom shelter – aping the shifting of the wind, now coming from the North West. At least he is dry. What will he and the tent-dwellers do when winter comes proper?
I drew in the café and the wind and rain blew an almost constant stream of people in. I am warming (even if it is freezing in there and the windows leak, there were spits of rain on my crayons) to the being in there (we have a specific table perfect for capturing the queue) and like to see the regulars, such as the thin-faced, bearded man whom he knows and is something to do with football, or the now pot-bellied young man who has to take strong medication (hence the belly) to combat his mental illness. I’ve seen him open up and he mostly comes in with friends now. People sometimes comment on what I am doing. I do it openly now with my paints and crayons spread out on the table. A couple spoke to me. They are on holiday and staying in a caravan in Borth, she told me that last night they’d had trouble getting the boiler to work. She talked fast in a continual sentence telling me that their boiler at home was 50 years old and that they weren’t used to these modern ones. She seemed unaffected by the wild weather and was looking forward to going to Devil’s Bridge later and perhaps to seeing the dolphins the next. He was more self-contained than her and read to her from the newspaper while she asked him crossword clues. I liked seeing their companionship. She commented on my drawing. Do you illustrate books? she asked. I did music at school, she said.
He saw someone he knew who talked about needing new staff. We clearly thought about it at the same time for later he rang him to see if they might be interested in taking me. I don’t know. I need to earn some money. I’m working harder than ever but I make nothing from it – its richness is all internal. (He would say that that is enough but I struggle with a sense of inadequacy at not contributing financially.) So we shall see and meanwhile I imagine it, trying on another life for size. How much will it shake my working week? Who knows. Isn’t it always this see-sawing with no real key as to what is the right thing to do?
