Time

What joins the moments together -
strung on a fine thread like glass beads
or mortared into a wall
or tenuous and fleeting
as the quivering bubbles in my bath?
Or are they in fact not joined at all,
but leaves falling,
flying fast from the branches
of one tree, or many, or none?

The Way Certain People's Minds Work

A screwdriver kept in every room,
tucked away somewhere inconspicuous
just in case the door latches malfunction,
because what, in fact, would you do
if you could not leave the bathroom,
were wrapped in a towel, unable
to open the door? It's either the screwdriver,
or a set of clothes and some iron rations,
and in the bedroom, where at least
you'd be warm, iron rations and a bucket.

Digging

And now it's Friday, with a bank holiday weekend in prospect, not that it makes a huge amount of difference in my life as it is currently. L returned happily from Filey, having breezed through the camping, and sat on a lovely beach in glorious sunshine, eaten fantastic fish and chips, and pottered about Filey Brigg with her good friend S. I had a hard day yesterday with old and almost intolerable feelings surfacing. But I made it through, and learned something along the way. As I prepare once again to work with young children, being in touch with the excruciating pain of childhood separations and fears opens my heart, and brings empathy, the capacity to imagine my way back into the experience of a child.

And today we went to the allotment. The attentive among you may have noticed I haven't blogged about it much, and it is true that it has tended to feel too much for both myself and L to manage during these last nine or ten months, when we've had what you might call a hard row to hoe in our lives, never mind our allotment. However, we have proudly harvested potatoes and chard, and raspberries and rhubarb and gooseberries (though we can take little credit for the fruit, which was well-established before we took over the plot.) Also today the first calabrese, and the garlic and red onions, which were the very first things we planted, now drying in the kitchen, with beetroot still in the ground, growing slowly for autumn cropping. Along with my work project and the poetry, I am making a commitment, along with L, to put regular work into the digging and clearing that needs doing to get the plot under control for next growing season. Clearing areas, then covering them with carpet or black plastic to keep the weeds from returning, then planting next spring. Also we decided today to buy a cordless strimmer so we can keep the grass along the paths and round the edges under control. Slowly slowly, catchy monkey.

And here's a proud picture of Franceline potatoes and rainbow chard!

Why Not Smile?

I'm just back from the Hare and Hounds where friend H kindly stood me dinner, as a thankyou in anticipation for cat care while she is in Pembrokeshire. Yes, she's off to camp alongside the yurt for five nights, and I think I'm feeling a bit melancholy-envious. Still, the red Thai prawn curry was delicious...

L's last text from Filey read Sitting on beach in hot sun. Loads of families here. We hired deck chairs. So I'm guessing she's having a pretty good time.

The meeting with my supervisor went so well that I seem to have regressed to about 6 in the aftermath, suddenly overwhelmed by the responsibilities of adulthood. What I mean is that C is so very confident in my abilities that I feel I have an unreserved green light, and the project suddenly feels very very real, and the back-wash to that seems to be a tidal wave of fear. All of this is fine really. It's how I am. Three steps forward, one step back, but always generally moving forward. The main thing is to hold the little girl's hand when she wobbles.

I'm listening to REM, something reserved for L's absences, and something I did a great deal the year I was commuting back and forth to London - in the kitchen during the London part of the week. My friend K made this compilation tape (yes, a tape!) for me, and I simply love it, though I know REM in no other context.
You've been so sad,
it makes me worry,
why not smile?
You've been sad for a while.
Why not smile?
Which possibly sounds quite inane out of context...

Nocturne

I unzip the tent flap in the small hours -
that narrow business-like sound -
and climb out into damp night.
Squatting on the grass in the dark,
the wind off the sea cooling my buttocks,
the stars are enormous blurred balls of light,
heavy, pulling down a soft blanket of sky.

Rattle and Shake

Wild weather today - almost as wild as my last night in Wales, when even earplugs could not conceal the persistent and violent, loud, sail-like flappings of the tent and the mostly undifferentiated roar of rain on canvas (though it isn't actually canvas any more is it, but, you know, plasticised fabric stuff), and nothing could even try to conceal the way the tent lurched and the inner and outer layers threatened to part company with an unearthly ripping sound, during certain choice squalls - and L has gone off for a two-day jaunt with friend S, you guessed it camping!! (Entering contest for longest blog sentence.) How it has happened that two of the most inveterate non-campers throughout most of their respective adult lives you could ever wish to meet, have been separately inveigled by their closest friends into 'under canvas' experiences during unreliable August weather, in exposed locations on the British coast, I do not know. But so it is, and L will spend tonight in a campsite in Filey, North Yorkshire. S has a camper van, and I guess they will be fighting not to sleep in the tent although there was talk of one night each in each. Also some talk of finding a B&B if wind and rain all got too much...

So I am home alone. The first time, unless my memory is actually even worse than I suspected, since we moved here 7 months ago. The wind has eased, and there is now rather lovely early evening sun streaming in. The fact that I am calling 5.20 'early evening' can only mean one thing. It is a thing that others have been mentioning on their blogs. The summer is preparing to strike camp, shoulder its back-pack, and head for the hills. Not that it's been a summer worthy of the name here in the Pennines, except for the month of June, which was hot and dry, allowing us to enjoy the newly rediscovered pleasures of a garden. July came, and with it the clouds. Which have only parted for maybe another 3 or 4 days or parts of days since. Well, we didn't move here for the weather, and if I ever leave it will be solely and exclusively because of the weather.

I made the mistake of adding a small top-up of caffeinated coffee beans to the grinder this afternoon, the decaff having run out, just short of the required amount. Just a timely reminder that I really cannot tolerate the stuff. Little jitters in my chest, an uneasy gurgle in my guts. I dont expect the decaffeinating chemicals are doing me a whole lot of good either, but I can't feel that!

This has all really been preamble. But to what? I am going tomorrow to see my supervisor - former and to-be - to talk about the private work with children. The last time I saw her was a day of torrential rain last November, when she gave me wonderful support and advice about the unfolding blogging-about-work-complaint drama, and then I came out of the session, got on a bus, and found the letter on my BlackBerry, summoning me to the disciplinary hearing at dismissal stage. So going back to see her tomorrow will be stirring for me. Perhaps will also mark the dawning of a new era, the end of that dastardly chapter. I like to begin new things in the autumn. It suits me. I was born in the autumn, and of course, as is the convention in these parts, began school, university etc etc in autumn. I'll see my first young client for the first time on the first day of school, so there it is well-marked.

I also want to be writing more. Want to be writing more poetry. I will tell you something, not to boast, but only to try and rally myself and get your help perhaps in the rallying. While I was away, L met S, my first writing teacher up here, (a fine poet, with three collections to her name), and her son in town. He is starting secondary school in September, and was proudly holding his newly cut front-door key. They talked for a few minutes about that, then S turned to L and asked her if I was writing. 'Some', said L, or 'not much', or something non-committal. 'Tell her to get on with it' says S, 'she should get on with it - she's got talent, and not many people have that...' S has told me before she wants to see me writing more. And so do I so do I so do I. OK autumn, let's try and use you - the wild wind, the low golden sunlight, the burnished leaves - not to descend into cliche - but to inspire and energise me into another new beginning. Let's start laying some 'track' as Julia Cameron would say, piece by piece on the page. I tend to stay too long with the edgy and quite charged feeling of ideas and stuff rattling about inside me, and find all sorts of displacement activities to stay away from the page the page the page.

Like this.

Though of course this too is writing.

But not poetry.

See you soon.

Pembrokeshire Rocks

Pembrokeshire

I (more than) survived my three nights in a tent alongside J's yurt, on the (at times windswept) Pembrokeshire coast, close to the Ceredigion border. My friend J has chosen a magnificent spot to spend her summer, and I felt very privileged to share a few days there with her.

And here's the view from my tent.

We sat inside the yurt, gazing out at the ever-changing sea, and across to Cardigan Island through the doorway, for hours at a time. The beauty of the yurt is you can have a feeling of being inside and outside at the same time. It is very light inside, yet cosy, and while you sit there you feel as close as can be to the land and the sea.

The yurt, made by J herself on a course in Cornwall many years ago, is a thing of considerable beauty and elegance.

When we weren't simply gazing out to sea, we pottered on beaches, walked along fantastic stretches of the coast path, picked blackberries, read, ate, talked, and were silent.

Cusp

I'm heading off to the Pembrokeshire coast on Tuesday for a few days to visit my old friend J who is spending the summer there in her yurt. I shall be sleeping in a tent nearby which anyone who knows me well will know is a very unexpected development. The last time I slept under canvas must be cracking on thirty years ago, on a not especially successful holiday with my then boyfriend. No, I'm not a natural camper, and the prospect of three nights on a campsite is stirring up all kinds of infant anxiety... However, J is a close friend of the kind to whom I can say what's on my mind ('I'm really scared about going for a wee in the night...') On a more adult level I'm looking forward very much to some 'quality time' with my friend, and being by the sea, and the rest can take care of itself. I hope to do some writing while I'm there. I shall take photographs of the yurt amongst other things to share with you upon my return. Before I go, I am launching my new practice working with children, with a meeting tomorrow evening with the parents of a prospective young client. The blue room is pretty much ready, though still awaiting a dragon or two. Deep breaths...

More Surprises

I find it fairly awkward to write about art, but must just tell you that there were more marvellous surprises at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. For one, it is a very lovely building with a wonderfully converted interior with lots of wood (stairs, floors), and a calm and inviting atmosphere, that made us want to stay and stay. Also a great cafe (always important) with a nice terrace overlooking a garden, with lavender. An exemplary brownie and decaf latte made a wonderful gastro-interlude, sitting under rather a lot of cloud, but just warm enough, despite a few tentative drops of rain (the only ones that day), which sent others scurrying inside while we sat it out, and watched the clouds blow along...

First we enjoyed Scottish Colourists, especially Peploe of whom I had not even heard, but whose small intimate oils were a delight. There were some utterly wonderful, small 'on-the-spot' oils of the sea - just the sea, the movement of the waves. I think they were by Peploe but I cannot find out for certain now... Robert Therrien's giant stack of plates towered over us, and looked in danger of toppling over, giving me an uneasy sensation in my stomach, while his giant table you could walk beneath, and four chairs made us feel like the Borrowers. Most exciting of all was a video piece by the Boyle Family. Shown on a large screen that lay flat like a table or perhaps a big shallow box was a piece of film of the sea. Waves moving, swirling and lapping. The position of the screen gives the illusion that the water is real, contained somehow in the 'box', yet the pixels are visible, and one has an uneasy awareness of the artifice all the while experiencing some of the same mesmerising, soothing sensations as when watching the sea in reality. Beautiful, unsettling, and resonating on all sorts of levels questions about the relationship between 'art' and 'reality'.

North Berwick

Forty-four pale blue sails tip the horizon,
point up towards lengths of marbled cloud
as the voices of children, muffled by the sand
are held in stillness over small waves,
the same if I close my eyes
as forty years ago, or thirty or ten,
the same salt smell, the same scratchy tap
of a spade on the bottom of a bucket.

Edinburgh Surprises

Edinburgh was full of surprises - the secret leafy feel of the Water of Leith Walkway, though it goes through the heart of the city. At times we felt we were in a green tunnel, dark and cool, emerging after a time into dappled light. Sometimes we had to come away from the river for a few moments, and find our way back to the Walkway, across a road and round a bend. The loveliness of Dean Village and Stockbridge which the Walkway took us through.

This statue of Hygieia Goddess of Health, who guards St Bernard's Well, whose waters are said to be health-giving (not that any of this can be learned at the site - I had to look it up on the internet!)


The sheer variety of the architecture in the city, its height, grandeur, and yet, what I want to call friendliness... so that despite its often towering qualities, it never seemed to intimidate as some city architecture can...


...except perhaps the Castle!



And then there were the cats! Not really a surprise, and yet, I had perhaps forgotten the very great pleasures of the company of cats. And they allowed us, total strangers, into their lives with such a good grace. They were at first a little wary, appropriately enough, then rather curious, and soon positively affectionate in Cassie's case, who came and made herself comfortably at home on my lap, entirely without prompting, of an evening. Sirius, of a rather different cast of character, was magnanimously accepting of worship, in the form of stroking and tender words...
Sirius in particular, reminded us strongly of our dear departed Kali, dead these nine years. A poignant pleasure.

Cassie takes a stroll around the garden.

Sirius as a pot of begonias...

More surprises still to come. Don't miss the next thrilling instalment...

Whose Words?

I'm sorting out stuff, making way for the establishment of the play therapy room. I came across this quotation, scrawled (by me) on a piece of scrap paper (in fact a piece of headed paper from the housing co-op where we lived in London...)

True art is a matter of existence, not of product, and there are phases when you must exist in a form that you can neither perceive accurately nor understand. In this time when so much is possible (I think it says possible), remember that you don't have what it takes, you are what it takes.

Unattributed, and I'm damn' sure I didn't write it! Julia Cameron maybe? Anyone?

The bit I love is phases when you must exist in a form that you can neither perceive accurately nor understand. I think maybe I'm just emerging from such a phase.

Edinburgh

So, Edinburgh. We had a wonderful three days in and around the city, which blew me away with its architectural grandeur and variety, its laid-back atmosphere, its gorgeous river walk, its lovely gallery of modern art, its proximity to the (proper) seaside. And then there were the beautiful cats (of whom more later)... who were generous enough to share their home with us from Monday to Friday. Which is of course also Isabelle's home, whose generosity must also be celebrated, though she was not there. We were comfortable, and felt at home from the word go, surrounded by the family library of fiction, poetry and reference, which we dipped into freely. We even, unexpectedly, had opportunities to sit in I's lovely garden, since the weather was actually warm and dry (almost) the whole time, which from the perspective of West Yorkshire this last five or six weeks, is little short of a miracle! The forecast before we set off was rubbish, but somehow the dark clouds that loomed as the train pulled into Waverley station, and which gathered and darkened now and then, were gracious enough to break up every day, allowing hot sunshine to accompany us on our walk along the Water of Leith Walkway to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and on to the Botanic Gardens, on our exploration of the city, Old Town and New, and on our day out to North Berwick! Just one brief shower when we were sitting on the beach, and heavy rain to accompnay our departure yesterday. Aside from that, dry and warm and mellow!!

At the Gallery of Modern Art, and along the Water of Leith is Antony Gormley's latest series of life-size figures '6 Times'. This one just beneath the Gallery itself.

We walked as far as Stockbridge to see another, but didn't venture all the way to the docks at Leith to see the complete set.

People are beginning to remark upon Gormley's repetition of this theme, his wide dissemination of images of himself. I'd only seen the London ones before these, and loved them. And these I found poignant, lonely, courageous, tender. Perhaps its the water that makes them seem especially vulnerable, exposed. Yet, enduring, despite the rust...