It has been a blisteringly hot week. I have always been a lover of hot weather but as I have aged my tolerance is reducing. I have a new understanding of seeking out shade, a light breeze, avoiding the hottest parts of the day and sun hats. Sleeping at home daily has become like the giddy first nights of a holiday trying to adjust to flimsy bed coverings.
Abroad I love the abstract shapes that sheets form after a night of fitful sleep in a foreign climate.
This week I have had abstraction at home.
Which I agree does not look all that exciting, but by reducing the detail and adding some colour my bed looks like a sculpture.
Something I might never had discovered if my tolerance for heat had not diminished. So maybe I am not so bothered after all.
Is that why the Italians in particular are so brilliant at creating folds of fabric from marble. Bright Sunlight and folds of bed linen every morning before they even get up.
Sunday and the heatwave continued. After a sweaty day in the countryside we returned home for a late evening swim in a bay filled with the beats of the last DJ set at the Drakes Island festival. This morning the sunrise and dawn chorus are in the exact same spot with a cool breeze and cooler water.
Then to finish off, live music from the Barracks. Who wouldn’t want to listen to a tribute band playing The Killers and Kings of Leon and any other band of that genre and era until 1:30 am. It was too hot to sleep, so roll with it in a comfy chair with a cup of tea. I have had worse experiences at actual festivals.
All punctuated with swimming in the sea. Very cool.
When your back yard feels like this at 9 am and the sea is just 5 minutes away it would be silly not to swap.
Of course even at 9 am the swim zone is busy, but the steps to this aquatic spot are a little bit concealed.
I can’t say we had this to ourselves, maybe 20 or so people found their way here in the hour or so it took for two separate swims and dog care in the shade. Seeking shade at 10am is the behaviour of holidays, not quite normal for our tiny part of Devon. Long may it last.
Early morning and our bobbing zone was like the M25. The motorway that circles London. Pre-work swimmers were getting their laps in while we walked our dogs. Then just like the tide they ebbed away and by 9:30 our little bay was down to about 25 less driven swimmers/bobbers.
Naval personnel provided additional waves, making three rapid passes just beyond the swimming zone. Helicopters were also very busy buzzing about. The curious thing is how much love the bobbers have for our tiny, busy bay. I can’t even remember why we chose this place as our habitual swim zone. The other beach, by the pool, is easier and more popular. But for the bobbers, Tranquility Bay is home.
And the bay that all others are judged against. Other bays may be warmer or more exotic but this little bay is where our bobbers gather and that is what makes it special. In other news an effective waterproof camera has been bought. The Bobbers as you have never seen them before.
Never seen before on this blog the steps and the tarmac promenade that overlooks our bay.
For book lovers the Tarmac Promenade leads off The Salt Path. Unlike The Salt Path the Tarmac Path and the stories that unfold from it are genuine, only moderately embellished and none of the bobbers have taken more than the odd biro from their previous employers.
Although once there was a voyeur on the Tarmac Promenade. Someone should write a book!
I was never sure where today’s blog was going and even now, with one sentence done, I am not fully certain. This is a talking and painting sketch. If the hair were grey and the face less youthful it could be me in a pondering moment. I deliberately chose the colour palate of the Studio floor.
Because I was planning to superimpose a photograph of the floor onto the sketch.
But plans, as we all know,are sometimes upended. While painting my peaceful woman I learned that the studio space I was painting in will close in six weeks time. After painting in and around these buildings in the Royal William Yard for 30 years my odd little sketch might be my last painting in these buildings. Suddenly I thought I had better make this sketch a little more significant. I have always wanted to paint an enigmatic woman in the style of Vladimir Tretchikoff
So I did some digital tweaking and added some blue to her face and legs.
Knees not boobs.
But that was all a bit flimsy so I traced over my quick sketch and then did some mark making in response to the actual sketch and with some reference to Tretchikoff ‘s fabulously ornate collar. Tricksy on someone who is naked. I also wanted just a scintilla of sadness. The loss of creative spaces is a somewhat sad and mournful moment.
Quite a giddy day today. An early trip out in a city that has free parking for three hours in some places. I registered my car number plate. Logged that my parking was up at 11:55 and went about my trivial business. Only to find this ‘Have a nice Day’ tucked under my windscreen. Who knows what has gone wrong but that is for me to sort out but, the very obvious ‘Please Recycle’ that amused me. Should I find some other hapless parker to receive my fine?
The bag itself had not been sealed so I have a small snack sized bag to refill with biscuits or a small piece of fruit. The possibilities seem endless. If only the recycle sign on food wrappers was quite so obvious.
Giddy has been the word of my last 24 hours. Yesterday I broke my own rule of not drinking caffeinated drinks beyond 12 noon. Gloriously tasty coffee fueled my natterings with someone I met recently who grew up in the same small market town that I did. We went to the same Primary and Secondary Schools. She is a little older than me but we know so many people in common and used the same book shops, coffee bars and clothes shops. Buying our first Levi’s in the same shop in Sandpit Lane. Two hours of nostalgia and the swapping of names familiar to both of us. I checked a map on my return and felt happy that Faggot Yard, a location on my bus route home still existed, we had mentioned that. How funny that two women so deeply embedded in the Essex countryside for 20 years should have floated off from the place of their genetic history and laid anchor after our working lives are over in the port city of Plymouth. We were both aware that our choices of careers would probably not allow us to stay in Essex for ever but also that parts of us will always regret that. What a joy to have met so far from home.
The insomnia caused by my coffee intake, entirely deserved, was full of a lovingly recalled nostalgia.
And now to appeal against that parking fine and find something really jazzy for that recycled bag to do.
The sun sets on a Book Group Day that should have been a humdinger given the weekend news,that all was not quite as Salty as it should have been on the Saltpath written by Raynor Winn. Or as we now know her to be, plain old Sally Walker*
Even the name change is a bit of a hint,who would conceivably give up on the surname Walker for a book featuring walking. Someone who couldn’t let her real name be known.
But no Salt Path discussions for the Bookworms today. Just 5 of us rocked up and out of respect for the other 7 we just discussed politics, the trials and tribulations of the ‘ burner’ phone for activists over 70 and a book of short stories by Ali Smith.
August’s meeting will be fascinating. A whole month for the Salt Path to unravel.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I was never comfortable with the writer and narrator of the Salt Path. I even gave up an interest in a local folk band, Gigspanner when they invited her to join them.
It is ironic that this revelation has come just as I have ended my Raynor Winn reading session. People helpfully suggested I read her second and third book to educate myself into liking and understanding her and her story more. The attempt to scrub my cynicism and replace it with some compassion had already failed when the news broke this weekend.
It gave me no pleasure at all to be proved right, because whatever I think of the author and her book, a lot of people have been inspired by her to walk the South West Coastal Path or to attempt seemingly impossible tasks when illness strikes.
I always hoped I was wrong about her, I excused myself from my dislike by thinking that I was misreading what I was reading, while reading ‘ between the lines’.
But to write one untruthful memoir could be considered an accident.
Two might be a coincidence.
Three is a pattern of deceit.
And to allow a Movie* to be made is asking for trouble.
And that appears to be exactly the tipping point. Although the film is less awful than the books because it can easily be viewed as a work of fiction. But now I feel some discomfort for the Actors, Gillian Anderson and Jason Issacs who gave excellent performances as people who were not who, or what they thought they were.
Books and bookclubs! They make you think.
Mount Batten Bay, slightly embellished. Why let the truth get in the way of a good story. The Saltpath.
What could you let go of, for the sake of harmony?
Sharing my opinions, is something I am willing to withhold for the sake of harmony. As long as I value the harmony I am preserving. But there are times when you just have to cast harmony to the wind and fly an opinion up the metaphorical flag pole to catch the same wind. Opinions are like the devices put on beaches to keep the sand in place.
Sometimes they work, other times they don’t.
And sometimes, for the sake of harmony, opinions are just not required. There is a path to harmony without them.
Bobbers Bob away sometimes. In our dreams our away bobbing bay looks like this but the weather had other ideas.
Which in truth was a mixed blessing. This camping field remained empty. We chilled as the rain came down. We hunkered down and talked rubbish in the biggest camper van and in the morning the sun came out and we were the first on the beach. But the sea was very, very cold. But we will remember it like this because for a wet weekend it was perfect.
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