All shall be well…

...…for Knots in the String.

I continue to marvel at the human body – what it can cope with. Any blow deep into the intestines in the 12^th century was a kill blow. In the 21^st century, organs and incisions heal and one walks away (albeit eventually). I do have spectacular bruising and a haematoma – which I may be able to turn around and use for a sequence in the latest novel. Nothing like personal experience for truth-telling.

It’s a mild day as I write this - 19 degrees, ahead of a severe weather front approaching. Our phones have been pinging for the farm and coast – gale force winds, good rains. We’ll see.

The wind gusts outside, and the last of the ragged weeping silver pear leaves are scattered across the brilliant green of our tiny back lawn. The lawn is luscious – my husband laid it before I went to hospital and it’s like a newly knotted and clipped Turkish rug.

The garden is like me, in a type of hiatus. As I must take the coming months slowly, waiting for energy to bud and burst, so my garden does a little bit here and there.

The Gilhams White primulas are coming into flower. Miniature white cyclamen are thrusting up everywhere.

The buds on the Doltsopa thicken to a nutmeg suede and the leaves develop an enamelled winter gloss.

My beloved hellebores start to push up and bloom – whites, blacks and slate greys, doubles, ruffles and spots.

Tête a tête daffs poke up through the soil, the ranunc leaves effervesce out of the tub, the white daphne promises me bouquets!

Watching:

Chelsea Flower Show 2024. Episode after episode. Fabulous.

Giro D’Italia to relive memories of the Italian Alps.

The Summit. – another reality show. Shot in NZ with money at the top of a mountain that must be climbed. Amazing what people will put themselves through for money.

Escape to the Country. A lovely show, but you can see that my attention span is limited.

Reading:

Antoine Laurain French Rhapsody. Thoroughly enjoyable but then a Laurain always is. Set in contemporary times about a France that has a real edge to it.

Listening to The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood. Set in WW II between Vienna and Windsor. Interesting concept. Enjoyable narration.

Doing:

Not much. Bit of walking. Up to 2600 steps (whoopy doo!), a lot of couch-surfing, a lot of computer surfing. I’ve pretty well written the whole of Act Three in my head, but the energy required to translate that to computer files is non-existent. But I work to my own timetable so that’s okay. However, because this post lacks guts (ha!) this week, here’s an extract of the most recent writing.

Act Three, extract from Chapter Two:

An hour later, as sweat trickled down Kate’s back, she was glad when Piotr called, ‘That’s enough for now, children. I’m happy.’ As she slid down the wall to the floor, with a towel to wipe her neck, she reflected that she was content with the way she had portrayed both women – the virginal Odette and the reptilean Odile.

James nodded at her and winked as he hefted his sportsbag over his shoulder to head to the door. ‘Good job,’ he said, and the door slid shut behind him. She wished he hadn’t gone; his presence was reassuring whereas Alexei’s was not.

‘Good enough but you could be better,’ hissed Alexei as he grabbed his own bag.

Her contentment fractured. Her fragile self-esteem in the face of Alexei’s daily barrage lay around her like an old rag. She untied her shoes, eased them off and rubbed at her feet, massaging her left ankle before pulling on the white Roxy runners she so loved.

She wished she was mentally stronger, that she could brush his cut and thrust aside. Part of her knew this Kate who sat on the floor was the product of Alexei’s cruelty. Part of her knew that she should remove herself. The irrational part of her mind cried out: but how? How was it that her mind could see no escape route? How was it that she could sit and rationally examine every piece of the jigsaw of her life and yet know that she was frozen. A little ice ballerina, she thought. One push and she would crash to the floor, the ice splintering and breaking.

‘Ma p’tite. You okay?’ Piotr had finished chatting to David and was about to exit the studio. If he’d heard Alexei’s put-down, he gave no sign. ‘Your ankle?’

‘It’s good, Piotr. I’m thrilled.’ If nothing else, that much was true. Her ankle had stood up to the strain brilliantly. She stood and shouldered her bag. ‘I was worried, but the medics have got it back on track. Today’s session was mammoth, and it doesn’t even twinge.’

‘Good. It was a big session, but I wanted you all to get the characters into your heads. I want this presentation to be edgy, not just the usual blah blah display of technique. I want you all to act your clogs off and I think you understand what I’m asking, yes? Essentially, Siegfried is an ego waiting to be crushed. Odette, lost and broken as she is, becomes a passive instrument – a deadly narcotic wrapped in white tissu. Odile?’ Piotr shrugged his shoulders, a grimace on his face ‘You know, she’s been so subverted by von Rothbart that I almost want to feel sorry for her, but I cannot see how to build that into the choreography. So she is and will remain a snake. But Siegfried on the other hand – I want him to suffer for his ego and Odette’s purity can achieve that. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for Siegfried. I want them to see justice done.’

‘So he will die in the usual way?’

‘I’ve yet to work out the manner of his death but it will be what he deserves. We’ll work on it together, I think. It will become apparent.’

Kate wondered how Alexei would react to an audience hating him. But of course, he wouldn’t care. He would glitter as an antagonist. It was what he did best.

‘Tatty, tomorrow we shall do the fouettés, yes? Adieu, ma p’tite.’ He pushed on out the door as David Jones came up behind him. And then she was alone in the huge rehearsal space, the light shining pearlescent through the arched windows. She caught her face in the mirror and lifted her arms gracefully to fourth position, raising her chin, looking up to the metaphorical gallery. In that way, her manner lifted, and she felt she could move on with her day.

If only it was that easy…

***

I confess to an uneasiness writing about domestic violence, but it is a brazen and ugly part of our society, so we can’t ignore it.

(My city healing place. The playpen end is to stop the Terrier jumping on the chair, scattering cushions, which I can’t pick up, to generally drive the world mad.)

And now possums, my tiny city garden is telling me ‘rest, take time’, and in the words of Julian of Norwich (14^th century) ‘All shall be well, all shall be well and all things shall be well.’

Music this week?

It’s the end of May as I write this. Snow? Possibly…