I don't get around much...

... for Knots in the String.

You know, it’s very easy to sit back and think Gosh! I really don’t have much depth to offer this week. I’m as much an Uncarved Block as my little pup. In fact perhaps I’m regressing so that I can meet him on equal terms.

Can one be an Uncarved Block in one’s seventies? Life must surely have sanded the odd edge off here and there. Rounded a few of the angles. But in terms of philosophising about the sanding-off, what is there to say?

I am like sandstone by the sea. Eventually, the waves will wear patterns and mouldings into the surface.

I saw this on Notes the other day. I’m not a fan of Notes (too much like Twitter), but this crossed my path by accident or serendipity, and I was charmed by the simplicity of the thoughts. How can one improve on such a simple statement that is in essence exactly how I feel about my writings. If the words that come from Knots in the String strike a chord on any one day with any one person, then there is an air of contentment. To have a wonderfully dedicated band who respond regularly is more than I can dream of. So may I say thank you, I really am grateful that you make a point of liking (💚) what I write. If you ever think the words are worthy then perhaps you might restack (♻️) as well. Then perhaps new readers can find Knots in the String. A bonus is that we might increase the Postcard Club. For those who don’t know, we have a Postcard Club here and anyone is welcome to join. Just contact me through my website (http://pruebatten.com) and I will send you the list of members’ addresses to which your name will be added. Then it’s just a question of you send a postcard to each and you each get one back.

***

As you may have seen last week, I was also beguiled by the video on Jennifer Granville’s garden.

This Week in the Garden

I love flying away on a carpet of dreams. Jennifer’s city garden was all of that for me in the video and it is perhaps what I’m aiming for in our own little townhouse garden. One that makes me think of words like sequester, seclusion, or the wonderfully exotic shinrin-yoku. It’s what makes gardening easily as creative as art, music and writing. The ability to create a different kind of world behind a fence or through a coloured door like Jennifer’s – an escape, an enchantment.

I bought a wire bell-dome today. I saw it in a shop and thought it would add whimsy to the little garden and currently, it sits on the folding bistro table that we bought with matching chairs, the week my late dog passed away. The setting is irrevocably linked to the grief of that week, but I’m fully aware The Terrier would expect me to sit outside and escape while I’m in the city because he and I spent together-time there. So I do. Only I’m now partnered by the Pupsicle who was sent by the Late Terrier to keep me company.

This chap beats the hell out of his frisbee while I sit and ponder if the tiny budding bonsai I’m attempting to grow is best under the bell (the blackbirds de-potted it the other day) or whether I should place a pot of furiously growing daffs there instead. Or maybe a pot of virginal white miniature cyclamen. These are earth-shattering issues to be dealt with.

I’m have been the city almost all of this week and it’s been difficult for the Pup and I. By Day Two I could feel the cabin fever nibbling at my edges. By Thursday I was frazzled and in need of space – much sea air and salty space, and so I charged back to the cottage and breathed.

It was strange dressing each day in city clothes. At the cottage, it’s the very tired, salty stuff that sees Pup and I along the water’s edge or bush tracks. In the city, I look in the mirror and think who is that person? I don’t know her. I have to grapple with my wardrobe which I barely know and which hardly knows me. It’s a conundrum because I’ve lost the art of dressing. Perhaps this is why folk dress in black. They don’t have to give any thought to colour harmony and presentation – it’s all a blend of deep shadow. Not me though. I’d feel as if I was in perpetual mourning. I tell you what! I need a pair of red shoes. I really do…

The nice thing as I age, is that because we’re at the cottage mostly, any good clothing I possess in the city lasts me a long time (perhaps it’ll last me into the shroud and the cardboard coffin). The Puppy doesn’t quite get the fact that these clothes are not to be bitten through, humped or clawed. Just tonight, we had a chase around the house to retrieve one of my Liberty hankies which had fallen out of my sleeve. By the way, to read a lovely Substack on hankies, see below…

212. The pocket handkerchief tree

My husband and I have phases where we get tired of noise and so peace becomes otherworldy as we switch the TV off. That said, we watched Ep One of Sherlock and Daughter the other night which we quite liked…

…and I’ve been re-watching Chelsea Flower Show 2024 periodically on Britbox in preparation for Chelsea 2025.

But generally we opt for silence. Silence in the city is filled with the hum of traffic, the emergency helicopters, voices in the street, plovers from the school oval. On the coast, there’s nothing but the waves, an invariable breeze chewing at the eaves, a possum galumphing over the roof ridge at midnight and the creak of a little house cooling in the chill of a mid-autumn evening. In the morning, the windows may be opaque with that pearlescent mist that signals colder times, and I’ll think twice about swimming but probably do it anyway.

Tonight, as we walked the dog, my husband’s head torch ran flat and so we walked by the light of a full moon and our senses. The waves snapped along the beach like a whip-crack, clear and sharp in the cool night air. Our eyes became used to nightlight and presently we could see a track to follow. The night was flavoured with the tang of woodsmoke. No houses where we were walking, so we assumed it was from a forestry safety burn a few miles inland. The smoke would be caught by the katabatic winds so that it wafted down the Paradise gorge to us. Despite the smoke, it was the kind of night walk I needed to ground me, to enable peace to cast its net around.

So you see, no philosophy about the grand scheme of life. Just a chat over a cup of tea and the yummiest triple choc brownies I’ve ever made. Can’t wait for you to tell me what you’ve been up to. I don’t get around much anymore, you see.

Music for this week?