The Firebreak Files #8

It's very hard to be entertaining when, not only is the country under Lock-Down, but one is still 'hors de combat', as my Dad would say.

But, it is as it is, and I have spent a pleasant enough day,:

This morning I made it up to the attic for the first time and was able to meditate with the wild sea. 

At breakfast, for complicated reasons, I had googled 'St Edmund, Kettles Yard'...so now my phone, desperate to please, was offering all sorts of variations - and I spent a while reading about writer and ceramicist Edmund de Waal and his fascinating family history. I remember hearing some of 'The Hare with Amber Eyes' on r4, and make a note to find a copy.

I had a slightly more creative day than some recent, stagnant days, and made a few bowls this afternoon.

This evening I was reading about Rabin's assassination - 25 years ago on November 4th. I remember hearing the news...my eldest and I were on the M4, returning home from a very long day down at my parents, giving my Dad some respite. There were firework displays and the skies were lit up for miles. 

Mum lasted another couple of years, almost to the day, all gone now...

A lovely little 'blue' Hunter's Moon tonight - but the streets are hushed and the wind and waves are all that can be heard. There will be no fireworks this year.

The Firebreak Files #6

Oh, I can't believe I haven't left the house and garden for nearly a week now! I am beginning to feel like a stagnant pool, in need of an ingress of fresh water and fresh air!

But it's no good - I still can't put weight on my foot.

So I have pottered today, not feeling creative, I still haven't played with clay...I only managed to finish a few cards:

And I made crumbles from yesterday's gift of apples and blackberries from the freezer - yum...

And started to read Station Eleven AGAIN - the library won't be wanting it returned for a while...

And watched with increasing horror the Labour party self-disemboweling

(is that even a word!?)

The Firebreak Files #5

Today was a red-letter day - we put the heating on! I had been hanging out for November 1st, but rain and wind, wet clothing and general gloom did for me. Besides I had been limping around like some minor character from a Catherine Cookson novel and was, quite frankly, swathed in so many layers I could barely move!

So tonight parts of the house are actually quite warm, towels are dry and the dog is not curled up like a husky in South Antarctica, with her nose under her tail. 

I feel very blessed, very privileged, and send some money to the DEC appeal for Idlib - where thousands are freezing in tents, hungry, with no running water. And Coronavirus...

In better news, my calf-muscle is beginning to return to life and a kind neighbour has given us some apples.

Oh and I cleaned UHU off my huge black scarf. With home-made deodorant. Obviously. As you do...

The Firebreak Files#4

Sorry to miss yesterday - I'm sure you are dying to know what I have been up to!

Nothing. 

I'm finding it really slow and hard to get about, and haven't left the house since Friday. The little jobs I can manage, like the hearth, the washing-up and so on, take twice as long, as does getting upstairs to the loo - and down again.

So I have achieved little else. Tonight I've finished my book (Ferrante, again!), and watched a dvd - it took a while to find one that I knew would be absorbing AND have a good ending...most of our extensive collection is waaay too depressing for these Lock-Down days.

'Dead Letter Office', should you be interested. No, no-one else has heard of it either...

My lower calf has developed a bruise, though not as spectacular  a one as I feel is warranted by the pain, inconvenience and howling.

And, strangely, my front lower leg too...

Kitty has transferred her alliegance (spelling?) to Alistair, who now gets an over-enthusiastic greeting, and all the leader-of-the hunt kudos.

Me she mostly ignores, except at supper-time. That's me put in place - little does she know I saved her from the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Ah well...

The Firebreak Files #2

Twenty four hours down the line and my leg is beginning to feel better...lots of rest, recuperation and reading, as prescribed!

Really I'm just thankful it was not far worse - if I had turned the other way and Baskerville had hit my shin...really NOT the time to be in A&E with shattered bones!

Last night we watched, as we often do on a Saturday evening, some old clips from TotP on some Freeview channel...the Big Hits '64-'75...GlamRock of the mid seventies looked quite grey and sedate in comparison with what was on offer on live TV.  Even the previews of Strictly made my eyes ache!

Earlier, while still wallowing in the sixties, he, for some obscure reason, asked: 'What IS a Fandango, anyway?'

As if the rest of the words of 'Whiter Shade of Pale' made any sense whatsoever!!

I am reading, for the second time this year, Ferrante's 'Neapolitan Quartet', and have got to the final volume, the harrowing 'Story of the Lost Child'. In which Lenu and Lila grow old, sometimes together. My bookmark is a card sent me by my best mate, years ago, and we spend some time on Whatsapp this afternoon wondering which of us is which of the two elderly ladies. And which of us is Lenu and which Lila...

The Firebreak Files #1

Yesterday started wet, again, but by lunchtime the sun had come out, though the breeze was chilly. 

I set off with my mate for a last stroll along the prom before the 'firebreak' shuts things down again for a couple of weeks. We took Kitty down to the beach for a few minutes, then back up the steps to the prom.

And then, in an instant, everything changed - 

there was An Altercation with An Alsation, which took a bound towards Kitty. I got in the way and somehow was hit? head-butted? bitten? on the back of my leg...

Which immediately went into total spasm from my toes to my groin, accompanied by a howl you could probably hear in Dublin...

So, the afternoon's shenanigans were ruined and I spent the rest of the day in a bit of a state of shock, wrapped up in a 'blanket-fort' on the settee, as the pain gradually localised around my calf.

A well-medicated night's sleep was punctuated only by Alistair returning at 3am from a late-night Samaritans shift (during which he and his colleague played a part in Saving a Life!).

And we slept late.

And today, the first of these Firebreak Days it has rained continually, and I have barely moved from the settee...

The pain is gradually subsiding, though I still can't put my foot down.

I hope the Alsation has a headache... and that its owners decide to keep it on a short lead...

Melancholy Meanderings

Melancholy has been a part of the fabric of my life for as long as I can remember - always 'a black dog flickers in and out of the shadows at the edge of the lawn'

A few years ago I came across these lines in Robert Macfarlane's 'Landmarks', which really resonated with me (love him or not, there are some true gems in his writing):

'Melancholy differs from grief in its chronic nature: it is an ache not a wound, it lies deeper down, is longer lasting, is lived with rather than died of...'

Challenged here to find the 'gold' in the melancholy, I walk in the early autumn woods, with my wonderful dog, and ponder the beauty of my surroundings.

 In the lovely landscape where I am blessed enough to dwell, it isn't a difficult thing to see the gold 'anyway', in spite of the melancholy - the mists drift in from the sea, the leaves are turning, I have porridge in my belly...

But to find the gold IN the melancholy, now that is a different prospect, and for that I am going to have to dig much more deeply...

We have been rewatching 'Detectorists' by the fire of an evening. For those of you who think it is a lightweight British comedy about eccentric Englishmen searching the flat, grey Essex landscape for Saxon treasure, think again!

'Detectorists' is about finding the real gold, not the stuff you think you are looking for. Digging deep? Letting go...?