Small Miracles...

... for Knots in the String...

This week I spent two days back at my heart home.

That’s a small miracle on its own because the place has been out of our reach for any number of reasons – medical and dental appointments put off for half a year, car services, theatre attendance, computer servicing, meeting up with friends, appointments in crusty offices. Suddenly 7 weeks is gone and I wonder when, oh when, will I get back to my heart-home on a permanent basis.

Always, as I enter the cottage, I stroke the doorframe and say ‘Hello House’.

It’s like walking into the embrace of my mum or my grandmother, despite that neither ever lived within its quaint walls. It’s a gentle house, calming, where sunlight strikes the floors, dances off cream walls and illuminates the ocean- and beach-toned furnishings. I never feel claustrophobic despite the tiny nature of the place because it’s possible to live inside and outside even as one just sits on a cane chair in the sunroom, facing the garden and sky. Beside me, there might be a blue and white mug of camomile tea and a chocolate cookie. Deep breath time when I can exhale all the angst of being forced to stay in the city when it’s the last thing on my mind.

This time, I listen to no current affairs, no radio or TV except for Conversations with Richard Fidler where he interviews writer, Chloe Hooper. Conversations is brilliant ‘thinking’ radio and for an hour, I’m transported to other people’s faceted lives.

In the room we euphemistically call the lounge, the TV viewing is pixilated with bad post-storm reception, the internet is paltry and I can’t even Facetime my husband overseas with any great result. My computer charger sits on the kitchen bench in the city and so I return to the roots of my writing career.

My first four novels were entirely handwritten and then transcribed/edited onto a word doc. The next few novels were a mixture of handwriting and computer and then I wrote the most recent published novel (Reliquary) on the computer in entirety. This time, it’s a mix again and because of circumstance, I gather my writing case with its supply of pads and pens onto the window seat and begin a chapter, in complete digital isolation. It’s wonderful and in two days, I finish a chapter! Such a lesson. I shall digitally isolate myself more often.

Dog and I walk the beach in splendid solitude on a mild blue day where the waves are mere apologies for the seas of earlier, stroking the shores like a whisper. When I return to my boggy garden, I strip to shirtsleeves and begin raking the storm detritus. Good work, honest work and even better knowing there’s a chapter written. The silver eyes, fantails, wattlebirds, parrots and blackbirds all accompany me from up in the dress-circle and I delight in their spring voices. They are their own little miracles after the gale-force winds of the day before. And like me, they’re happy with the knowledge that seasonal warmth may finally approach and that we’re all alive.

In the paddocks, the first lambs are dropping and this to me is the ultimate in small miracles – that such tiny bundles can be birthed in the pseudo-wild and can grow and prosper. We leave them alone – the mums are experienced and our presence will only unsettle them.

I leave the coast for the city (again!!!) and stroke the doorframe of the house, thanking it for its comfort and healing powers and I motor away. Back soon, I whisper, and not just for a moment…

My Time.

Heaven help me but I actually shopped in the city and purchased a palest mink-coloured sweater and some white jeans. (Maybe I’m going all Coastal Grandmother.) Shopping is an antipathy for me so success was a miracle!

I attended ballet class – which apart from being in my city Matchbox-garden or walking the terrier, is the highlight of a city week. A perfect day, although reversing rond de jambe par terre on the floor without a barre for support challenges my disabled balance.

I attended the cinema for a showing of the Paris Opéra Ballet dancing Nuryev’s choreography of Romeo and Juliet. Breathtaking! I had a touch of performance PTSD as the Dance of the Knights thundered through the cinema, drawing up memories of our own performance of Dance of the Knights last year. I still pinch myself to think of two separate audiences of 1400 people watching us at the time. Unbelievable!

With (now-returned) husband O/S, the terrier and I walked. A lot. Even more when we reached the coast, as though we needed to make up for the kilometres and days we’ve missed over the last 7 weeks. The first walk was necessarily slow – the terrier had to read every clump of brush, every pole, and then leave his mark. There was almost two months of canine news to catch up on!

Viewing:

On TV before heading up the coast, I watched more of the most recent Great Canal Journeys with Sheila Hancock and Gyles Brandreth on SBS On Demand. They’ve become favourites, people who could be friends. The scenery is stunning, they make me laugh, and they have philosophies that kindle my interest.

I started rewatching The Durrells on Britbox. Still a stellar production.

Also What The Durrells Did Next, narrated by ‘Mrs. Durrells’ herself, Keeley Hawes (lovely voice).

Miriam Margolyes on Graham Norton

where she talked about her book This Much is True, which I had listened to and loved via audio. Because I was on my own, I roared with laughter – she has absolutely no filter. The terrier nearly had heart failure!

Reading:

On audio I finished The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland. It’s a story filled with terrible moments of physical abuse and depression, but if one can move beyond that, it’s a story of a woman reclaiming her rightful life. I had a moment where I thought well gosh, she should just have gone back to the coast much earlier and she would have been able to heal, but that’s simplistic at best, naïve too. Just my own coast inveigling itself into everything, even when I read…

On Kindle, I’m reading The Singing Trees by Boo Walker. Only a few pages in but it’s set in Maine which is a drawcard and it has pace, which I appreciate.

And so the new week begins.

I’ve been invited to do a podcast with well-known UK hist.fict writer, Matthew Harffy (Dark Age books of the finest calibre). It will be interesting to see what we talk about – maybe we won’t even talk books and writing at all which is always elucidating because it’s all been said before, really.

But now it’s time to return to my manuscript to transcribe the most recent chapter. I enjoy the editing, adding and subtracting. It’s often my favourite part of the journey. So with that in mind, I hope we can talk next week. Until then, take care and cheers! Here’s to hundreds more healthy lambs!