Weathering...

... for Knots in the String.

Summer morning heat,

Sky is crystal clear,

Sun beats black and blue

No respite from life

Nature breath out

Humans breath in…

The restless day meets the calm night

And old dreams (fly) back to the eyes. M. Asim Nehal.

Every day drags us into the deeps of high summer. Hot, hotter. Wonderful for swimming.

The ocean sloughs off the exhaustion of a warm day, evaporating headaches, cooling the blood. Salty refreshment. One can almost drink it in, it’s so welcome.

I’m not a fan of warm days. My body rebels – I tire easily and my skin burns. The older I get the worse it makes me feel. I could languish on such days with the air-conditioning on, reclining on the couch with my writing, existing far away in the 12th century (drifting through the Medieval Climate Anomaly – climate change – warm and wet in Europe way back then).

I weather. My skin ages and I’m reminded of pigskin. Please not yet, I think, as I wear hats, long-sleeved shirts, masses of unguents whose purpose is to protect me. But my skin tells many stories, with scars, blemishes, dark freckles and a scattering of white freckles caused by the sun. My septuagenarian skin has no resilience these days; it needs help. Too little too late…

My garden shrivels. The watering system works hard every evening, water flies in moonstruck sprays, settling on the mulched soil, the plants drinking it in – gulping, I swear. This is a garden that has been damp from three years of La Niña and now, on the spin of a coin by the weather gods, we have the crackle of an El Niño. Some of the deciduous trees in the south are turning umber and sending golden discs flying away in the slipstream of hot summer winds. It’s far too early for autumn but nature struggles as we see dead native animals on the road. They migrate from the bush, crossing busy roads, searching for fresh pick and more water, and meeting their Maker.

The farm is crisp – a faded taupe with plush-cut pasture clipped close to the ground by ovine teeth. But the sheep are in good nick, this is the kind of weather that merinos thrive upon. This year’s clip is likely to be a little finer because of the Dry. There’s nothing like the ivory sheen of a good merino fleece with a tight, fine crimp and no breaks. Something to be positive about.

Doing:

Swimming with my little five year old beach-buddy, trying not to count the days until school returns this week.

Filling the Terrier’s old bath and watching the old chap sink under the water even before the hose has half-filled it.

Arriving back at the cottage after a few days in the city and seeing the Terrier run rampant with a desiccated rabbit carcass. We grab it from him but too late, and he spends an uncomfortable night. So uncomfortable that we must head back to Uncle Callaway the Vet. We fear an obstruction or worse, but – anti-vomit meds, a pain med and a giant poo and all is well. I say to the vet, quite nicely: ‘Thank you but we don’t want to see you again for quite some time!’ He laughs, maybe too knowingly. Later, another poo, filled with sharp rabbit shards and bony chunks. I shudder at the possible implications.

The image is of the Terrier quite squiffy on meds and not knowing which way is up and I wonder if he will become an addict after the vicissitudes of this summer.

Spending time surrounded by research books on medieval illumination, on scribes and on monks. (I want to learn calligraphy – in the medieval style). Making a soup with the zucchini glut – zucchinis, potatoes and onions from our garden along with lots of Italian herbs, blitzing it, throwing in some white beans for protein and then pairing it with sourdough bread, spiced fruit chutney and cheese. Picking greengages – a poor crop, but enough for a couple of pots of jam. Netting all the pears and apples as protection from voracious birds so that we have an autumn crop. Making jellied strawberries (from our garden) and a cranberry and chocolate slice.

Trying to find decent shoes. My feet are ageing, growing wider, drier in the summer weather – roughly sanded and with heel splits, swollen in the heat. Blisters. Callouses. Please find me some soft shoes that I can wear on the beach and the roads when I walk with the Terrier. Not sandals, nor runners, not flip-flops (thongs in Australia) nor Birkenstocks or Crocs – for which I have a pathological dislike.

I call out to the Terrier: ‘Stop licking!’ He has one of three responses: turned away innocent eyes that say ‘Who? Me?’, or a curled top lip with belly rumble and dead eyes (beware), or the click-clack of an anxious jaw. Take your pick.

I pull on my old overalls to slash the Sleeping Beauty (you know the legend) vines in the berry-house so that I may gain access to the late-fruiting raspberries without drawing blood (I’m a bleeder). This high fashion garment (ha!) was for wearing over breeches, long-boots, shirt and tie whilst tarting up my much-loved show-hack and dressage horse, (a copper bay thoroughbred gelding called Nicholas) back in the 70’s. I was petite then – 24” waist etc. Surprised these still fit as my waist is definitely not 24” these days. The clothes usually lie folded in a green bag along with breathing mask, gloves and woolen socks in case of bushfire – weather, weathering.

Reading:

In print – David Macallister’s Ballet Confidential. I feel as if I am sitting across from him, having a coffee, back stretched, neck and head elongated, shoulders softly back, feet in neat third.

Listening:

Audio – The Lost Bookshop by Emma Young, having finished Robyn Cadwallader’s brilliant Book of Colours. The Lost Bookshop has a dual narration – quite a good story to cover my hours of driving to and from the city.

A brilliant interview by Richard Fidler with Richard E. Grant when A Pocketful of Happiness was released. Given that it was my book of 2022, and that it sits by my bed, the interview just reinforces what a truly nice gentleman is Grant and so well-drawn out by Fidler. The two seemed to have a real kindred spirit. Despite that I thought I knew the book backward, Grant spoke with such emotion and revealed such gems of his life with his adored wife, the late Joan Washington, that I know I will have to read it again.

Watching:

Still on Endeavour. Up to Series Four. Still enthralled and wondering why Shaun Evans is so below the radar in TV, film and on stage. I admire his acting style, his presence. I think he’d play Francis Crawford of Lymond in Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles to perfection – there’s a kind of cut-glass asceticism in the way he plays Endeavour and that must surely apply to Lymond, even if 400-500 years separate the two characters.

I think about Lymond as the air-conditioning cools off the cottage so we can sleep. I need to read Lymond again. Dunnett is my Number One icon after all. There’s some of the most gobsmacking, heart wrenching scenes ever written in historical fiction in those stories. Maybe, as I contemplate a day of warmth tomorrow and keeping up the water to both the garden and myself, I could pick up the first in the series of The Lymond Chronicles – The Game of Kings.

It’s a battered copy, weathered on the cover and down the spine. Rather like myself.

But weathering is a good sign surely – that the copy is well-loved.

And isn’t that food for thought?

Music? I’ve always liked Seals and Crofts.