Sausage and shingle .

 

Bought Autumn / Winter wardrobe editions on Friday . Two shift dresses in a thrilling blue Two denim pinafore dresses .

Blue dresses still thrilling . Two pinafore dresses a sodding disaster . The cut was entirely wrong . ( " I don't need to try these on , they are fine ". )

I looked like an over stuffed sausage - one that had been stuffed with vengeance in the heart .

Two places could do one pinafore but not two in the size I wanted to make them loose , boxy and nineteen twenties .

Inspiration struck and I found a supplier near a shingle beach .

Tried on two lovely designs and came away with one of each .

Fish and chips and then ice cream gazing out to sea . Satisfaction on the shingle .

Red velvet .

 

A trip to stock up on wine takes us past two sources of second hand books . Such is the location of both that the " top ten "paperbacks are sought after . The rest changes regularly and is largely untouched except by the happy few . 

Today biographies of Katherine Mansfield and William Morris . A book of Ardizone sketches plus some poetry : Plath , Hughes , Larkin and Wendy Cope . I think I like the Larkin and the illustrations best but the biographies will sit and wait for the right moment .

A fat slice of red velvet cake and a steaming pint mug of strong tea each when we returned .

Small satisfactions .

 

It's good to go shopping across country (petrol situation much improved and plenty for all ).

Across country then , a deer in the middle of the road starred us out on the way over and mackerel skin skies on the way back .

Inbetween a ferocious curry, reduced Leuchtturm note books which saved me a fortune ( well £124.51 anyway ), groceries of course and some men's tee shirts in kingfisher blue .I bought XL size so I could cut a chunk off the bottom of each and have a boxy customised shape . The bottom where cut obligingly curls up slightly ( allowed for that ) so the style looks very meant . 

Small satisfactions .

There is nothing phoney about a coney .

 

Came back by the country roads today . Light fading and rain dripping on the leaves and the land . Every so often the rain had had flowed from the sloping fields onto the road making them silver and making that nice swishing sound as we drove through . 

The sky looked like a part of paradise . Pale pink , pale blue , pale grey , shining white and silver with bursts of gold where the setting sun flowed across the sky through a chink .

I was not looking forward to Autumn . Last year's with the circumscribed circumstances and the prospects clear to all made that difficult .

It's different though . 

I relish collecting some more conkers ( do you bake or vinegar ? )

I have plans to go to a favourite market town to see a good butcher about a bunny. 

I'm looking forward to lingering and greedily gulping down some good art in a nice warm gallery . 

I've had my hair cut very short - I'm all about the cheek bones at the moment . It's a good style to take some of my semi precious earrings . Today long thins strands of lilac ( Lolite ) and later with a dark green dress some fiery Garnets - as big as hips and the same colour as haws .

I've ordered the new Nigel Slater to cook into the winter with and have the latest Rachel Roddy on my desk to compliment it  .

I've finally got into the Elena Ferrante quartet ( the Neopolitan novels ) and have some eye wateringly expensive wool gradually knitting up into a wrap to take me into late Autumn with a swish . I can sit in a quiet corner , with either , and some fifties New York jazz and good coffee making good even better .

Its to easy to look at the world and see only bleak . I heard someone talking the other day about it being " futile to hope " .

Hope is never futile .  

Maybe Lolites and Italian novels are not for you but we all have our rabbit pie so to speak ,  don't we .

You can keep your hat on .

 

Two beings have seen me through the worst of these times . A young barn owl that fluttered in the gloom and a magnificent stag that stared me out . Their beauty and sheer indifference to the virus helped . 

Those days of gun metal skies and numbing cold. In that persisting gloomy light and ice all you could make out was hope running into the distance with his arse on fire .

The wild things helped - that and any song or piece of music that could make me cry . It was like blood letting .

Today was different.

 The alert level has been taken down by the medics . The demise of the virus has been more speedy and significant than they expected .

Under a very blue sky I have seen snowdrops , primroses , catkins and pussy willow . 

I have had enough of augury and omens , none of them good .

 Instead I look at small green buds and I have to tell you that this years are particularly fine . 

Note to self .

Buy lamb for Easter feasting .

Put date in diary to purchase frilly knickers and a new straw hat .

Plan to wear the two for breakfast and then leave one on .

Further note to self .

Buy hat pin .

A call to action ?

 

One of our regular routes takes us past an unassuming semi with a driveway . The driveway has pots of all shapes and sizes with a surprising array of plants in them . A leisurely browse will generally yield several gems . 

The owner is short and well rounded with her hair in a white bun . She is strangely elusive . She will exchange a few remarks with you and when you turn round to reply she has vanished . Scuttled away like a hedgehog . More than once I have not seen her go towards the road or behind a bush and certainly she has not passed me for her side gate or her front door . She has simply , inexplicably disappeared . 

Today we stopped in the wet and dark and I walked gingerly through the pots to the front door . 

I rang the bell prepared to have made a gesture and left . 

After a minute or two the front door opened a crack and two piercing pale blue eyes appeared . The eyes were an unusually pale blue ( mine are bright blue but not as piercing or that shade of ice blue ).

I explained I had bought various plants across the year and paid through the letterbox . I said that I wanted her to know that my garden was flourishing because of her . I wished her a happy Christmas and held out a rather nice jar of jam .

The door opened on a lit hall and she stepped forward . 

"Do you have rosemary " she said . I said I didn't ( which was not true as I have planted a whole hedge from rosemary and lavender cuttings )

She looked at me very intently and I felt she could see everything I had ever done .

"Wait here " she said shortly and scuttled away . I waited . She scurried back .

" I did not grow this rosemary tree  " she said . "my friend did , she planted it with love and tended it until it grew into a tree , with  love ". 

"She gave me five of these and told me to give them to the right people ". " I cannot charge you for this because it has love in it - do you understand me ? "

I said that I did and took the tree from her . We regarded one another squarely . 

This was not at all what I had intended or expected to happen . She stepped back , I thanked her and turned . The door shut .

I said to the saxophonist " do I look needy ? " He said i was probably one of the least needy people he knew . 

I will never know who the other four " right " people are and I am still thinking through something which feels like much more than a sum of its parts .

Agreed ?

 

I have gathered sea holly from the wilder parts of the estuary . Just enough to mix with the traditional holly from the garden . The sea holly is blue grey and has no berries . The garden holly has lots of red berries . The two sit oddly well together . 

The sea holly has sharper points and they come off invisibly . I climbed shoe - less on furniture to put the two hollies over picture frames . I need not , I am sure , go into detail of what ensued . 

The butcher in the village nearby does the very best herb sausage meat to compliment a bird . The ride home goes into the wilds and just after the goose farm four firs sit on a bank . 

A cry went up "back up ! " , "back up !".

The thick branch I choose was , the saxophonist said  , too  thick to come off clean . I looked disappointed and it came off clean .

I went to the recycling centre for a new tea pot and some paperbacks .There , amongst the bric a brac was a gold and opaque glass sphere . Flat bottomed and open necked . 

They never slaughter the geese at the goose farm. They are a constant feature  of the landscape ,  year round  .

I am writing this by the " tree " in the sphere nursing " sea holly feet " . A pile of paperbacks sit enticingly nearby and a large brown tea pot sits on the draining board . 

Life can be water and dry bread . Or it can be a mug of good strong tea and thickly buttered crunchy toast .I believe you can choose and probably a lot more than you suppose .

The geese have no reason to disagree .