Being a flaneur in Clapton

In October, I stayed with Jay and Bridget in Clapton - Sophie and Tessa had arranged for me to go on a day's cooking course, learning how to make a proper curry - one made with real spices, great pungent coils of squashed garlic and ginger, lavish handfuls of fenugreek seeds -

The course was held near Alexandra Palace, and staying with Jay and Bridget meant that I would not be catching the very early morning train from Wareham - I had caught this train many times, going to conferences in London, when I was a headteacher - I would, I swear, see two or three hedgehogs waiting to catch the train with me - they might be reading the Daily Mail -

I was, therefore, very grateful to Jay and Bridget for putting me up the night before the course - whilst there, I took the opportunity to wander round Clapton - I felt that I could have spent days looking at the small food shops, the taxi joints, fish bars, internet cafes, social clubs, phone card joints, berbers, Mediterranean food stores - 

I watched, very closely, the people going past me, entering and leaving these places, going about their business - I saw dark faces, wonderful hair, base ball caps, immense white trainers, powerful dogs, squadrons of BMWs - I heard languages other than English, accents other than those heard in my rural retreat -

I wandered along the cosmopolitan pavements - I wanted to enter every one of those places I saw - I wanted to ring up an aunt in Kinshasa, to play pool in a room full of smoke, to drink Tyskie on the upper deck of a red bus -

I thought of all those years when I'd worn a suit -  but now I had sworn never to wear socks - this was a mark of my new freedom -

Visiting Poole Museum, remembering times when one was unafraid 

Whenever I have had enough of the sights and sounds of Falkland Square, I seek sanctuary in Poole Museum - there comes a time when you have seen one too many pit bull, one too many brawny girl in her grey trackies -

The museum is housed in a slim hull of red brick, a former warehouse just off from Poole Quay - the galleries have low ceilings, supported by  rough hewn beams - there are four galleries, with a cunning roof top terrace attached to the topmost gallery - from the terrace, you can see a slice of the harbour - gulls fly over the choppy grey water - small boats line the quayside - passers by head for the pubs, or for the Brownsea Island Ferry -

Within the museum, the exhibits are well chosen - quirky, full of memory - there is an inter-active screen near the entrance, showing you the harbour through two millenia - a long dug out canoe, treated and preserved by some strange science, reminds you of the time when this locality was a marshy wilderness - hunters paddled their canoes along mazy channels - tall rushes hid wild fowl - still pools were used for sacrifices -

You can use the micro fiche reader to explore the dense columns of 19th Century local newspapers - there are accounts of murders, shipping movements and assemblies - a cheery gaffer in a tweed jacket will guide you through the archives -

I was especially taken by the portraits of Poole sea captains - they had wary, proud, faces - there were pages from their logs, with weather observations made in italic script -

There were pictures showing the development of Poole as a holiday destination - I looked at the two young women, running down to the beach, I guess, in the 1960's - I wondered if they'd had their hair done in those weird hair dryers I'd seen - they looked like Dan Dare ray guns -

There was a sort of innocence about their faces - a guileless enjoyment of the moment - I wondered what had happened to them - how had their lives been? - I thought of how everyone has at least one picture, in which they are at once both unafraid and beautiful -

Walking along the beach at Durdle Door

Whenever I walk along the beach at Durdle Door, I feel that I am entering a borderland - I walk along the tract of sand or shingle which falls subject to the advancing or retreating waves - within this edgeland of wet sand, or of gleaming pebbles, I look out for shells, driftwood or hanks of kelp -

My mind is full of the idea of departure, of boats setting out for the horizon - I think of mariners, dragging their skiffs down to the sea's edge - I look up at the gulls above me, swaggering like bravos in the turbulent air - I think of all the leave-takings made here, in this zone of foam and spray -

The cliffs are a white wall of chalk behind me - there are small caves at their base, just above the coarse sand - high above, the grass of the cliff tops billows in the salty wind -

The sea surges through the arch - boys tombstone from there in the summer, their thin brown bodies plunging deep below the waves -

Anne and Maire once swam out, through the arch - I followed - the sea was clear and cold, the beach shelving steeply away, so that you were very soon out of your depth -

Back upon the warm pebbles, we dried ourselves with rough towels, felt the sun upon our skin - felt ourselves given only to the moment -

The waves hissed upon the shingle - yachts sailed by with bright sails -

Wall paintings in Tarrant Crawford Church

I sometimes think about the passage of time - I imagine an invisible river, flowing through the streets I walk down - I imagine silent whirlpools of years, swirling round churches or libraries -

I can remember reading science fiction stories about time travel - I wondered what it would be like to breath the air, say, of Florence, when Machiavelli was still working for the republic - or to stare, wide eyed, at The Great Eastern -

In country churches, I feel very close to this silent river - I can sense the movement of time, eddying against the cool walls -

In April this year, I visited the church at Tarrant Crawford - I'd heard about the medieval wall paintings - Pevsner says they date from the early 14th Century -

I stared, for a long time, at the stark figures - the three Quick, and the three Dead - I could not hear their voices - but I could see them emerging from the plaster, from the deeps of the river -

I could see St Margaret of Antioch - I could see her robes - she, too, I felt, would slowly become full of colour - I could almost see the steam of her breath in the cold air -

Chimneys at Christmas

We had our chimney swept about a month ago - the sweep, Mr Sooty, is a tall man, of great dignity - his voice is calm and grave - he has the handsome, regular, features of a  1970's NASA astronaut -

One chimney Mr Sooty swept in West Lulworth had a jackdaw's nest inside it - there were 52 pieces of treasure in the nest - these included buttons, rings and a tiny model of Thunderbird 1 - I imagined the clever bird, sitting in the dark, looking at the red nose cone of the rocket plane -

Our chimney presented no challenges to Mr Sooty - his brushes soon swept it clean - we were issued with a certificate attesting to the chimney's new cleanliness -

Mr Sooty told us how he'd sometimes rescued small creatures from their smokey oubliettes - he cleaned chimneys all over Purbeck - some chimneys were easy to clean - others, however, were dark labyrinths, full of birds' nests and tiny bones -

Mr Sooty was concerned about his health - we spoke of our shared experiences of having a gastroscopy - I wished him well -

Later that day, I made and lit a fire - I stood outside the house, watching the filmy smoke coil into the darkening sky -

I thought of how smoke had risen into different skies through history - smoke from hunters' fires, sea coal smoke over the roof tops of Tudor London - the smoke of souls - I thought of how terrible winds had swept away whole peoples -

Badbury Rings

In April this year, I went to Badbury Rings - I have a deep fascination for pre-history - the term evokes for me lost civilizations, stone temples aligned with the stars - I imagine Dorset, covered with wild wood, the chalk ridgeways guarded by hill forts - men with tangled beards look down into valleys choked with oaks and alders - wild boar glare out from wild coils of brambles -

I enjoy looking at Ordnance Survey maps, seeing the sites of barrows, tumuli, mounds, dykes - influenced by my reading of The Old Straight Track, I try to plot the alignment of ley lines - 

It took me an hour or so to drive to Badbury Rings - I listened to Weird of Hermiston in the red Peugeot - I  could see the Rings from the car park - the concentric green ramparts enclosed a wood - I could see the gracious outlines of the trees - the ditches and ramparts were like deep ripples, or waves, in the turf -

I was suprised how steep the ramparts were, how sheer and smooth their slopes were -  I walked all the way round the outer ring - I passed by a man in a waxed jacket, accompanied by his sleek labrador - apart from these two figures, I saw no one -

Inside the Rings, I walked through the tall trees - they were thinly spaced - sunlit glades were filled with long shining grass - one tree was lit up by white flowers upon its branches - they were like tiny white lights, pure and precious symbols -

Right in the centre of the rings, was a large metal disc, set upon a plinth - you could see inscribed upon it all aspects of the view around - Knowlton Church and Circles - Deanes Leaze - Melbury Hill - 

Standing there, I looked up at the sky - there were no shapes in it to disconcert me - I thought of the people who had lived here - I wondered if they had ever lit wendfires - I could imagine the kings leaving their mounds, clasping their bronze swords -

I made my way back to the car park, scrambling through the trees - I slid down the banks of turf, faster and faster - I thought that any moment I might see figures dancing, or hear hoof beats upon the turf -

Imagining that I was a pasha, lolling in the Palais Salam, Taroudant

I have always had a desire to loll like a pasha, sipping iced sherbert, pampered by gracious attendants - I imagine myself stretched out on a couch, shaded by olive trees, under a southern sky - or, perhaps, shaded from the sun by the large torn leaves of banana trees, grouped round a fountain -

When I stayed at the Palais Salam with Anne in Taroudant, many aspects of my dream came true -

We had driven for an hour or so, across the desert, heading east from Agadir - the seat belts in the worn out  black Mercedes were useless - worry beads hung from the rear view mirror - the seats had tiger skin covers - our driver came from a small village in the mountains - he spoke a little French -

Taroudant was surrounded by high walls with towers and crenellations - within its gates was a labyrinth of seething dusty alleys and streets -

The Palais Salam was once a pasha's palace - it was set against the walls of the town, with a tall man in a red robe guarding its gates -

Once inside in the gardens of the palace, I walked through tiled courtyards, shaded by palm trees and banana trees - the high walls shut out the noise and poverty of the town -

Cool water splashed in fountains - oranges hung from dark green branches above my head - moorish arches led into cool halls - checkered blue and white tiles were cool under my bare feet -

I drank orange juice by the pools within the gardens - sipped cafe au lait from thick glass tumblers - looked up at dusk at the swallows in the sky -

I swam in the icy clear water of one of the pools - ate large olives served me in a deep bowl - I felt utterly at peace and indulged -

Fortunately no messenger came for me from the sultan - no bow string awaited me - only the whisper of time, hissing through the leaves of the palm trees -

Seeing a stag at Arne

We often go for walks in the RSPB reserve at Arne - you see grave twitchers with powerful binoculars - they have cameras with monstrous lenses - they sit, frozen, in the hides, looking for the beautiful elusive birds -

The reserve is reached by a narrow lane, with passing places - you go though heathland, with rough pasture, gorse bushes and dark woodlands -

Once at the reserve, you walk up a slope between noble trees, entering a place where your cares are taken away - you see birch trees, like shining white wands - huge oaks, with anguished branches, frame views of silent fields, with grazing deer - you catch glimpses of the creeks and marshy borderlands of Poole Harbour -

In the summer, you can walk in a field planted with sunflowers - the huge yellow flowers are like spooky radar dishes, listening for the voices in the air -

Then, suddenly, you may come across a stag, motionless in the bracken, almost invisible - you will catch sight of its antlers, its impassive gaze -

This happened to us - we were walking back from Shipstall Point, thinking of toast and crosswords - there was the stag, only a few feet away from the path -

We were, I think, perhaps a little afraid - the powerful creature stared at us - I could see, very clearly, how sharp its antlers were - they were like spears with cruel, whitened, points -

I thought of the wild hunt - how the woods would echo with cries of horses and hunting horns -

I'd just been reading Alan Garner's The Moon of Gomrath - I knew that the old magic was still here - it all depended on how closely you looked -