Taking Stock
I love my blog but it just wasn't possible for weeks. Work was horrifying and felt like a prison. Here I am doing my annual review in January, but it still feels to me like the end of the year. This was the first year since 1989 that I haven't written five lines of diary every day. That just shows how wretched my life got.
And the English weather got to me so much that I lastminutedotcommed down to, of all places, the corny old Cote d'Azure, and discovered, like Matisse, that that light will always be there for me. It was a revelation to spend five days in the sun. I will go back every winter. Art, light, sea, walking, beauty.
And the English weather got to me so much that I lastminutedotcommed down to, of all places, the corny old Cote d'Azure, and discovered, like Matisse, that that light will always be there for me. It was a revelation to spend five days in the sun. I will go back every winter. Art, light, sea, walking, beauty.
Part of my taking stock was that I dragged myself, very reluctantly, out of Wiltshire to get up to London and spend New Year with friends. This is because one of them reminded me of Millie's diary (see my archive of 19th September, 2007) and I didn't want to be alone, just like her, in bed here yet again, as I have been year after year, and like Cliff, too. The great news there is that Cliff, the treeman, is back in Wilts, and I will blog about that soon, or ask him to guest blog. My mother says, "There is always something really nice about treemen." She's right.
It was just brilliant to see the New Year in with friends and wine and takeaway in London with fireworks going off around us, an early-hours dash to pick up their drunk daughter. "Do NOT yop on me, Chloe", I said, worried about the back of my neck in the passenger seat; "I have to take my little god-daughter to the London Aquarium tomorrow".
The London Aquarium is okay, but going to be much better after Easter when they've got the rays back. I could have sat and looked at the shark tank all day. Even better than that was eating in a restaurant with god-daughter and her parents afterwards. I felt normal. It was a very funny feeling to feel normal, on the South Bank with good food and company and music. This is a sort of once-a-year kind of thing for this old country girl. Little things please this little mind.
But you know what: it was so very beautiful in the hoar frost on Wednesday, the last day of the year, that, before heading up to London, I went for a long rough walk among the sheep and the white cobwebs. The beech woods were one of the most lovely things I have seen in my life. They were like those cold frosty Christmas cards of snowy landscapes that I don't always like getting (I like red Robins and red Pillar Box-type Christmas cards; anything to cheer me up), but I was shouting to these frosty woods for their beauty.
I watched a very large rabbit with his large white tail bounding through the beeches, and then a second later a large red fox bounding in rather a desultory way after it. It was the most beautiful fox I have ever seen. He had a huge white tip to his tail, and when he decided to stop his chase and stood above me (up-wind, though) I saw his most elegant outline. He then sneezed eight times and disappeared soundlessly.
I found pussy willow on the way home and thought it would look marvellous with the first narcissi or whatever I buy -- as there is no sign of the bulbs starting early this year.
The London Aquarium is okay, but going to be much better after Easter when they've got the rays back. I could have sat and looked at the shark tank all day. Even better than that was eating in a restaurant with god-daughter and her parents afterwards. I felt normal. It was a very funny feeling to feel normal, on the South Bank with good food and company and music. This is a sort of once-a-year kind of thing for this old country girl. Little things please this little mind.
But you know what: it was so very beautiful in the hoar frost on Wednesday, the last day of the year, that, before heading up to London, I went for a long rough walk among the sheep and the white cobwebs. The beech woods were one of the most lovely things I have seen in my life. They were like those cold frosty Christmas cards of snowy landscapes that I don't always like getting (I like red Robins and red Pillar Box-type Christmas cards; anything to cheer me up), but I was shouting to these frosty woods for their beauty.
I watched a very large rabbit with his large white tail bounding through the beeches, and then a second later a large red fox bounding in rather a desultory way after it. It was the most beautiful fox I have ever seen. He had a huge white tip to his tail, and when he decided to stop his chase and stood above me (up-wind, though) I saw his most elegant outline. He then sneezed eight times and disappeared soundlessly.
I found pussy willow on the way home and thought it would look marvellous with the first narcissi or whatever I buy -- as there is no sign of the bulbs starting early this year.
I have been reading, for about the third time, The Enigma of Arrival by Vidia Naipaul. Although it's about South Wiltshire, I was taken with this word, "benign" which he uses to describe our chalk landscape. You can feel taken care of here. I wish I had the perfect pictures of it to show the world how soft and gentle and nourishing it is. Robert McCrum says, and I agree with him, that it is "at the heart of the English imagination".
Here is near perfect: pictures from the wonderful, wonderful website:
They show that begnignity.
The misty one is by Andrew Smith, and the farm on Hackpen Hill by Brian Robert Marshall. I am really grateful to them for all their pics. I am constantly browsing the site which makes me love and appreciate what's all around me.
I am making wonderful patchwork quilts. Wait and see them.
Labels: Hoar frost, London Aquarium, Taking stock, The Enigma of Arrival, Vidia Naipaul, z*z*z*.....................................................................................................
posted by PollyBee @ 20:23
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