I needed to put myself in the space. To see what I could or couldn’t do. I was very nervous. It made me scratchy. Poor love, he always gets the brunt of me. We went. And the quilts hanging down protected my anonymity and I drew. I did it. And it was, is, enough for now.
As promised, here it is. I went to draw. Well, we went. I had no idea what to expect. And it was difficult. I hadn’t reckoned on it being so dark once the show was on, nor that the seats would be so uncomfortable. But it was amazing. Much smaller than I’d remembered and there weren’t the elephants, lions, tigers and plethora of clowns and trapeze artists of my youth, but there were some wonderful horses, three amazing tumblers and strongmen ‘from Tangiers’, a tightrope walker and a very funny and athletic clown ‘from Brazil’ sans big face makeup, ruff and big shoes. Drawing was a hit and miss affair. Everything was fast-paced and noisy, and I couldn’t see what colour I was using or what marks I was making. But it was exhilarating and I found myself exclaiming in wonder several times just like a child.
We’re a couple of old crocks, he and I. Our last two drawing visits to the coffee shop have involved long, detailed conversations with our fellow coffee drinkers about hearing aids and hip replacements. The first took place last Friday where the builder who used to do work for his ex-girlfriend’s second home in Borth was sitting at the next table. He was just off to collect his new hearing aid from Specsavers. He’s a little younger than him, but they shared ‘deaf’ stories never the less. The hip replacement chat was yesterday. I had cried when we’d got there. Self pity over the discomfort of it had got to me. An hour later the small man (or ‘chap’) as he would call him, came in using a crutch. We hadn’t seen him for a while either in the shop or on the Prom. He’d had the op. Best thing I’ve ever done, he told him. I was waved over to come and listen when I saw them talking after going to the loo. He’d seen us at the hospital for my last appointment, apparently. Had I noticed him? Maybe. Anyway, he was full of praise for the care he received. And the pain, he said, went right away. My issue is that he is 73 and I’m not yet 60. Is it something I did? But I am opening my mind to it. The pain comes and goes, as does my self-pity (which is the worst of it). I walked this morning in the rain (the smell of wood smoke a compensation for the wetness) . And I will continue to do. Won’t I?
More about the circus tomorrow.
We’ve only recently had our windows cleaned. They are a bugger to clean – I can’t reach them and they have to be done with long poles. Anyway yesterday, or was it the day before, a bird, could be a seagull (though his old mate says that there’s no such thing) or a rook, whatever it was it shat on our tall upstairs window, a dribble of which went onto the one below. It’s a huge splat of a thing. I’m trying to see it as a gift, like my painful hip, a gift that is there to teach me acceptance. There is f**k all I can do about it until the window cleaners from Aberaeron come again so I have to look at it with what, grace? Yes. It is what it is, he would say.
He went to buy the tickets for the circus. Are you one of the performers? he asked the tattooed girl in the caravan-cum-box-office. Yes, she said, I do fire.
I alternate my morning walks, approaching the Prom from different ends each day. This morning I walked along North Road and then up past the back of Alexandra Hall. I like walking on North Road, it is slightly raised up and beyond the tennis courts, bowling green, odd little nonentity of park and the eye clinic you can see all the backs of the Prom hotels, B&Bs and halls. The houses are mostly huge and red brick with flowery front gardens, even the ones occupied by students. One house has a mass of teddy bears in its upper windows. They appear to be pressed against the glass. And they are the huge kind. It’s more than a little creepy. Is it a child’s nursery or nurseries? Or is it a series of rooms occupied by an adult with a fixation on teddy bears, such as Giles Brandreth, or nostalgia for childhood? I think I know who lives there and she’s a warm, amiable woman but there is a physical illness, I believe. And then there are the roses. Many of the front gardens on that road have them. They are beginning to spill their petals, some white, some pink, some yellow. Most have little or no scent much to my chagrin. I stick my nose in their centre as I walk by, no, no, maybe. The dog roses in the Castle park are the best. Sweet, heady and gorgeous. As are the wild climbing ones on our back path. They fill the summer morning with the smell of something like joy.
As I came down the hill alongside Alexandra Hall and tried to kick the bar (so cumbersomely these days) I noticed that an estate car parked nearby had its boot open. And someone was moving in it. They must have slept there overnight. There was a sleeping bag and several supermarket bags. It must’ve been cold but waking to the sound of the sea lapping must be lovely. Poor love, his bones are going to need a shake out. Then again it might be a woman. I saw a man/woman walking past the24 hour SPAR as I walked home. He/she had a beard and was wearing a black silk strappy dress, black doc martins and socks and was swinging a handbag rather half-heartedly. Perhaps he/she was trying a bit of cross-dressing out in the early hours to see how it felt. I hope it went OK and that they have the courage to have another go.
I’d taken a rather uncomfortable seat on a drain cover just facing the old tax office whose car park is currently inundated with Openreach vans, so as to draw it. It had been an unsettling morning (how easily I get unsettled these days, or perhaps it has always been so and I’m merely more aware of it now) and I was very discombobulated. I’d been meaning to make a drawing of it for ages and yet now that I was in front of it nothing was coming, I couldn’t find a point of interest. And then I began to feel the stinging under my thigh. It took me hours to work out what it was. Nettle stings. I was terrified of nettles as child, almost as much as I was of wasps and jellyfish. That threat of pain. Ridiculous really. If I’d cottoned on a bit earlier I would’ve found some dock leaves.
Walking along from the Avenue yesterday there was the most intense scent of elderflower. He even smelled it. Lovely.
His saying to me, shall we sit out? has become a summer feature. I’ve sat out on my own mostly so far. The sun has been intermittent and he wants it warm. So I go out alone to sit there on one of our fold-up chairs on the tarmac beside our car looking out across the wasteland that we affectionately call, ‘our garden.’ The rape has taken over, though it is beginning to die off now. But there is also white and purple clover, a big buddleia bush and grasses and foxgloves and further down the path a rambling rose, bramble and two different kinds of honeysuckle. I like it’s wildness. I like to sit and stare at it. Like our 104 year old neighbour does. Not that she can see very much these days, or hear the bees buzzing, or the dry leaves rolling and rustling in the wind. There haven’t been that many butterflies yet. It’s a waste of time. I don’t do much. I think, stare, and sometimes snooze if I close my eyes. Yesterday I had my hood up against the wind but it was snuggly nevertheless. I make do. I take the rest when I can. And it is fine. It is.
There is a round patch of it on his bottom sheet but no sign of scratch or scab on his back. I try not to make him feel uncomfortable about it while I wrestle with what to do it. ‘Just leave it,’ he says, ‘it doesn’t matter.’ And I know that he is right, it doesn’t. It’s my blood, it’s not foreign. Just leave it until it’s the usual time to wash it.’ OK.
We always smile about it when he recounts his mother saying about his family that ‘we’re not big bleeders’, as if bleeding a lot or not bleeding a lot was some sort of genetic trait. We smile mostly because she was wrong. He is a big bleeder (not in physical size, I might add) and has been for as long as I’ve known him and even more so now that he takes his daily aspirin. These things, as they say, are sent blah blah…..x
Did I tell you that my hip bones click? I remember hearing my mother’s knees click when I was a child. Now mine do too.
I couldn’t work out what it was. It was a really strong beam. A circle of whiteness that appeared to be static. Was it another Welsh Water van parked up on North Road with it’s headlights on? But no, it couldn’t be because this was only one light. It seemed to be getting nearer. Or was it that I was just walking towards it? Then it became clear. It was a bicycle light but a very strong one, particularly as it was almost day. An elderly man was riding it, fitted out in all the gear – high vis jacket and waterproofs and helmet. He was cycling at a very leisurely pace, much slower than my hobbledehoy walk. Good morning, he said as he glided by. Good morning, I said.