Gentle...

... for Knots in the String.

“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.”

― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

With husband away, I beat back to the coast for a kind of solo retreat. One built of gentle silence. I crave the silence. I want nature to touch me on the arm and breathe deep with me – inhaling and then exhaling all that eucalyptus-tinted air in the bush, or the salt-tang air of the shoreline, or, in the case of my garden, the freesia-scented air that reminds me of the delicate French perfumes of my mother’s time. Is it my imagination or are the French scents no longer as subtle?

We had a burst water main alongside our 70 year old front willow and the plumber accidentally cut our landline which is our internet connection. Thus TV is only free-to-air with nothing I want to watch at night. I spend the evenings listening to Spotify through my phone – my own collation of easy-listening music from the likes of Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald and which I called Real Coastal Grandmother.

No internet? First world problem.

But the imposition is a blessing, the silence (without music) very real. I can hear the garden birds (berating me for not filling the birdfeeders). I can no longer hear (or feel) the waves belting the shore which means the nor-east swell has dropped out and I might just get one more cold-water swim. The Terrier and I will investigate.

The sun is gilding the sunroom floors and the Terrier is sunbathing. He’s irascible of a morning if the sun doesn’t shine – zooming from room to room with his toys, checking to see if I am at last mobile and ready for the day. But if the sun is shining, I’m granted an hour or more of peace to dress, have a cup of tea and think where he and I might walk today.

My Time

Alone…

*No ballet class which galled me no end. I had a medical appointment and it cut through my class-time like a hot knife through butter. I was not happy.

*I have sent an email (via my sketchy phone connection) to the historical association of L’Île Barbe in Lyon in the hope that they can shine a light on the existence of a 12^th century Benedictine abbey that some of my own research has placed on the island.

It may have been the Abbaye de Saint Martin which is now derelict and the site of archaeological surveys. If my facts can be substantiated, I have finally found my chosen home for Brother Bruno, the church scribe. Bruno needed to be from Lyon, his abbey isolated, and what better place than in the middle of the Saône river. With no bridges.

I await replies with interest and gratitude.

*I’ve written my blurb for The Red Thread.

Easy you think? I’ve written about 10 so far and ditched the lot. I want a short one – deft and definitive. This is the one that will go on the internet sales centres like Amazon, Apple, and many others that will sell the novel – that is, my sales pitch to you. I may write a slightly longer one for the back of the print copy. Not sure…

*A gentle Fathers’ Day last Sunday, spent walking for miles and back along the cliffs with the family and the Terrier – the waters below were aqua-tint and I felt such an urge to swim.

*But I swim later in the week. A warm day with a hint of summer entices me to ditch the wetsuit and just wear a radiator top. Knowing my hands and feet feel the cold, I still wear wetsuit boots and gloves. The water is… chilly. 11 degrees. And within moments, my legs are burning. But it’s such a rush – the endorphins that fill the body are tremendous. There isn’t a soul on the beach, I am completely alone – which is probably inadvisable at my age and in winter water. But I did it anyway and am glad.

*I’ve tended the spring garden – with the mains water damaged (now fixed), the automatic watering system is still off, and the garden has been in the path of drying pre-summer winds. Thus I commune with garden and hose. As the spray of shimmering water arcs across the beds, one can examine each plant with interest. There’s a relationship you see and yes, I talk to my garden. To my house as well, but then I am an eccentric…

*I stitch hearts. A plea went out this week from https://www.1000hearts.com.au

for supplies for ‘kids with a parent in prison, pregnancy & infancy loss, support workers to share with distressed clients, palliative care workers and patients’.

I stitch whilst listening to Spotify. Gentle activities which send one to bathe and then climb into bed in a restful state. So that when I take my blood pressure for the doctor’s record as I sit on the side of the bed, it’s 114/71. I think that’s okay; it’s not always that good, trust me.

*The week finishes with a glammed-up night out with my daughter in law at the ballet: Sleeping Beauty performed by the Royal Czech Ballet. I’ve not seen Sleeping Beauty before, but my father raised me on the melodies. Transports of delight in the ornately plastered and gilded Theatre Royal. I commend all dancers who dance on that stage – how they must have to compress their choreography and yet still fit it to the music without finishing up out in the wings or down in the orchestra pit!

Reading:

Kindle: Still with Benet Brandreth. Not because I dislike the The Assassin of Verona. On the contrary, I find it an engaging, unique novel. But I’m so tired at night that I barely read a page. Sometimes I wish I was someone who could, without guilt, take time out and read of an afternoon. Mum and Dad always used to in their old age…

Audio: Still listening to Ben Kane’s Lionheart. I’m familiar with Richard I’s history, having researched it for my own novels, and also having read a number of fiction novels by esteemed writers. Thus far, I think Kane’s is my favourite as I dive through the family ructions between Richard, his brothers and his father, King Henry II, seen from the eyes of Rufus, his Irish squire.

I crave to bring such life to my own characters.

Substack: This week’s is Chicken Scratch.

Disappointed idealist

Total synchronicity and thank you, Elizabeth. Besides, look at those caterpillars!

Later, I look up the meaning of gentle within my context and find: “having only a small effect; not strong or violent” It suits the moment.

Thus, unlike Virginia Wolf who examines herself, her knife and fork, I instead examine the pattern on my favourite blue Spode mug, inhale the lemon and camomile fragrance drifting upward in a diaphanous curl from my tea. I look at the chocolate cookie and think yes, why not? And I stretch my bare toes, curling and then pointing them as the sunbeam flows liquid gold across the floor.

I talk to no one but the Terrier, and it’s desultory – a one-sided conversation as he sighs and rolls away from me. A sure sign he wants his own private gentle time.

That’s fine with me.

I shall listen to music…