ellen bell

We sat out after lunch and the sun was glorious. I even stayed out a little longer when he went in for a nap. I just wanted the nothingness of sitting there listening to the birds (a robin hopped down to join us for a moment before getting edgy at its own audacity) and the cricket match that I could hear being played on the college field. I had no idea that cricket could be so noisy. But they were good sounds – of the ball against the bat, a chorus of clapping and good-humoured shouting – warm sounds, the approach of summer sounds. Your face looks quite red, he said when I came in. Good, the sun has had its effect. Lovely.

There were sounds and sights of a party going on in a house behind the Prom. Red lights flickered on and off and they’d clearly decided it would be good fun to lob some beer bottles out of the window for they lay on the road in pieces. Voices were singing along to a track that was playing. The chorus of Reach for the Stars was easy to make out. Who made it? I tried to remember as I walked past. Was it S Club 7?

Rain and more rain forecast today. So be it. There is much to do inside.

The painter who came to make a quote seemed nice. 5 days, he said, 7 at a pinch and maybe September. It won’t be a pleasant thing having strangers here but the after effect will be lovely. I shall give the flat a proper spring clean then.

I finished it. It has been submitted.

Will be she be released soon? Don’t forget her.

I put Radio 3 on in the early mornings and keep it on until after breakfast. He hears it when he goes for his first pee. What’s all that bollocks? he called up the stairs. John Shea had been playing modernist music all morning. That particular piece involved an Eastern European girl’s choir making bird noises. Mozart did come later, but much, much later.

The clouds are magnificent this morning and the light is Titian-esque. It promises fine.

I’ve almost finished my assignment – what a painful process it has been. You don’t have to do it, he says, just do the reading. He is right. I have nothing to prove and yet, I cannot let it go. The eternal student still looking for approval. I’m the only one who can set myself free from it.

Shall we have sun later?

Someone had written something on the sand with seaweed. It took me awhile to read what they had spelt out. And then I got it. FREE PALESTINE, it read.

Coming back home after a full walk, even including the Perygyl, I listened to the blackbirds’ song. I counted 5, 6 maybe even seven different voices. I saw one on top of an eave along Llanbadarn Road, the rest were just sounds. All unique. Were they conversing, challenging, or communing? It was beautiful, loud and resonant.

I lived in his house for three months when I came back from Norway, before he and and got our little flat together. He is an old man, now, as he was then. I like him but he keeps to himself. His home was not a comfortable one but it was shelter and I appreciated it. I passed his house this morning and noticed that his recycling bag wasn’t out. He is a man of regular habits and he’d always put out his recycling on a Monday night. Is he OK? He says he will call to check, the friendship is his after all.

It’s that time of the year when I start to see the morning rise as I walk home – a kind of blue behind the clouds. It is a hopeful sight.

I managed to swing my right arm a little as I walked today. Small steps but they are meaningful. Sometimes it is just a case of trying to make it feel normal. And my body doesn’t forget. I thought about all the people who are afflicted with a stroke and have to relearn how to walk, talk and move. It must be so hard. My discomfort is nothing by comparison. I thought about the man with his wife whom he used to see in Tesco’s, the one he calls Mr & Mrs Baldie (he is without hair and she, bless her, is losing hers). He has had a stroke, his wife told him. I wonder how he is managing. Poor love.

We sat out in the sun last night before bed. It was lovely. The wild flowers have taken over the waste ground once more – such a range of varieties – I saw buttercups, daisies, clover, ragwort, dandelions, forget-me-nots and loads more that I don’t know the names for. What a colourful mess of life. And for the moment it is ours.

Someone had left a pair of blue binoculars on the little wooden bench on the small rise leading into North Road. They were plastic and of no intrinsic value but perhaps they will be missed nevertheless. It didn’t rain as I walked and it was warm. I saw the Sikh gentleman (he wears a turban so I am assuming he is a Sikh, but a gentleman he assuredly is) again on the Prom, though I usually see him on Llanbadarn Road. He’s as thin as a rake and walks with a purposeful stride, his arms raised and fists clenched. He had a rather natty quilted coat over his white trousers and shirt on today. He never acknowledges me. Why should he?

It is a constant aspiration, its acquisition a deep desire in me – but it is elusive. Always. I lay in bed last night, wide awake at 1am from the throbbing in my arm trying to detach myself from it. I wasn’t distressed, just too alert for sleep. Give me grace. It may take 6 months she told me. And she was kind and gentle and she did help but it was a shock. She thinks I’ve fractured possibly both my shoulder and elbow, small breaks but breaks after all. It needs rest but also I must move so that the muscles don’t stiffen. It’s a hard one, that, the balance. I try to do what I can and to not allow the self pity to unsettle me. Onward, Ellen. It is nothing compared to the pain some must endure, often for a lifetime. Small steps, he used to say.

That flat along South Marine still has its window covered in signs telling us to WEAR MASKS, WASH HANDS and so on. I feel rather like I am being shouted at when I pass by. Will it always be so?

The council have erected two huge yellow signs down by the harbour stating that no mobile home, motor homes or caravans are to be parked there. I thought he’d be more pleased when I told him of this when I went in to wake him. Yeh, but they need to police it, was all he said.

It rained again this morning as I walked, my arm in the sling carrying my umbrella. My walking boots squeaked along the wet pavements. I felt better yesterday. I was busy. But I’ve come down a bit, perhaps it is the physio appointment today. Will it hurt?

I am mending. I am on the mend, as they say. But it is slow and I still can’t raise my arm fully. I must be patient and let the wisdom of it permeate through. What can I learn from this?

The rain continues to fall. A grey day. There is much to do but I am frustrated by others lack of response. Heigh ho. I shall continue until I am told otherwise. And perhaps it may be just what they are looking for.

Flickers of pleasure. I begin to mend though I am still much reduced. Work is coming through and I’m pleased but my confidence in my ability to meet deadlines wobbles me. I can do it. I can. I will. My dreams were dense and convoluted (no doubt as result of fitful sleeping). Damian Lewis was hugging me every time I cried while I thought that he had far more genuine reasons for grief. The soles of my shoes were coming away and I was due to do an impression of Cliff Richard for a talent show. Are you ready for it? a man asked me and I told him that I’d decided in the end to tell stories about meeting him rather than trying to sing like him. Then I was trying to pack all my things into bags and they were everywhere. And then I was in my favourite coffee shop in Oslo with a woman ( I used to love this place, I told her) and I ordered in Norwegian (I watched the man’s face change as I did so) though I couldn’t think of the word for Vegan. Small flickers of pleasure. As was seeing the lit up fishing boat as I walked this morning. Enough. I must work. And thank you.

It has thrown me more than I’d have thought possible. It’s just an injury, he says, it’s not an existential thing. And it isn’t and many people are in pain and incapacitated by it their livelong day, but I am thrown. I cannot do the work I usually do, and if I can I am not sharp, not efficient. I am slow. Slow, slow, slow. I fight it. I fight what is and give myself pain by doing so. This is not wise. I know this. But there are good things. It arrived. She got it. I hope it gave her joy.

I didn’t hear my alarm. You needed the sleep, he said when he woke me. Yes, probably. I wake and wake shifting this way and that to get my shoulder comfortable. And its the grief that tires me too. There is so much. So no walk this morning. We will walk together later up to the top. I like that.