Remembering watching David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia ...

This afternoon, we walked through Moreton Plantation, parking the red Peugeot not far from the small cemetery where T E Lawrence is buried - 

We crossed the ford - the shallow waters flowed over shining gravel - 

I gazed at delicate birch trees, then dodged questing Jack Russells - 

Two women went by in a horse drawn carriage - I admired the noble head of the horse - I imagined riding it, bareback, over midnight fields -

Soon we crossing over heathland, past dark serried pines - 

Penny and I saw a buzzard, flying close to the ground, a small torn animal clutched in its claws -

It was warm and still - we removed sweaters, knotting them around our waists -

Two girls rode by - they greeted us with their savage dazzling smiles - 

On our return, Penny and I went into the cemetery - we stood before the pale iconic gravestone - 

I remembered seeing Peter O'Toole in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia - I'd gone to the Ritz Cinema with my dad, worlds ago - 

The wide screen showed me a beautiful boundless desert - noble music rolled over the sand - 

The ethereal hero stared at me with his wounded blue eyes - 

16.00

30 September 2014

The Cemetery

Moreton 

  

The tandem ...

We were walking down Swanage High Street, past eateries with distressed walls, galleries featuring pale abstracts, shops with raffish sun burnt bravos selling gleaming wet suits - 

We'd looked round the council chamber of the Town Hall - above the sombre mayoral chair was the legend Fear God, Honour the King -

I gazed at the bust of Thomas Burt - I stroked his frozen beard - 

We repaired to Love Cake - Sophie and I drank chai - Paul told me about his days as a reporter on the Scunthorpe Telegraph - Anne looked at Tessa's WhatsApps pictures from the Sydney Botanical Gardens - 

Later we walked past Smiths - we'd looked for mirrors there - the languid pirate inside had drawled these mirrors come from France - 

There was a mouldering spidery tandem resting against the shop window -  

I imagined Anne and I riding it - we'd fly over these stone tiled roofs - we'd surprise the swifts by our speed and daring - 

12.30

September 29 2014

Outside Smiths 

High Street

Swanage

At The Square and Compass ...

I'm sitting outside The Square and Compass, sipping a half pint of Copper Ale - a cool salty wind is blowing in from the sea - bravos on mountain bikes are snarfing succulent pasties - late afternoon sunlight falls upon whitewashed walls - quivering hounds snuff the air - 

We're talking about wedding venues - there's a plan to travel to Harmans Cross by steam train - 

Inside the pub, dark ales are served from a small hatchway - a narrow passageway leads to low ceilinged snugs - in one, there's a chair made out of bleached driftwood, a wizard's throne, in the other, a stuffed badger on the window sill - underfoot are worn shining flagstones - 

I gaze at the framed cartoons by Low hanging on the panelled walls - 

Sophie talks about corkage - later, we walk through the village, past the elegant silent houses of Purbeck stone - 

I read the opened bible in the icy church - I imagined village weddings, names carved in marble, shadows falling upon the grass - 

18.00

September 28 2014

Outside The Square and Compass

Worth Matravers   

Julia waves at traffic ...

I had great hopes of Blea Tarn - I had imagined sullen waters of immeasurable depth, perhaps lapping the shattered walls of an ill omened grange - 

Instead we saw a shallow pool, half choked with reeds - 

I consoled myself with reading quirky asides in our guidebook - muddy section with over powering smell of the country from the nearby farm - garden full of ornamental gnomes - 

Julia told me about her first job in a village school - I remembered my own desperate afternoons with baying boys and glowering girls - 

Our path took us over the M6 - we gazed down from the bridge at the furious violent traffic - 

Julia jumped up and down, waving her arms - 

This is exciting! she shouted - she's waving back!

For a second I saw a small figure waving through her windscreen - then the Audi vanished, whirled away like a leaf in a millrace -

July 13 2014

Linstock

Back from Heathrow ...

We've just got back from Heathrow - we drove Tessa and Charlie to Terminal 2 - now they'll be watching in flight movies, cosseted by almond eyed air stewardesses - the dark planet will revolve below them - 

Terminal 2 was a glass utopia - we drank cappuccinos under a soaring glass canopy - 

Charlie reminded me of Seth from Cold Comfort Farm - he said in Australia the air smells dry - 

We said goodbye to Tessa and Charlie just before they went through security - 

I could see the beautiful jets rising up from the runways like shapes in a dream - 

Soon it would be dark - 

22.00

September 26 2014

The Old School House

East Stoke

The first log fire of Autumn, 2014 ...

This evening, I'll light the first log fire of Autumn in the snug - the members of the book group will be meeting here, in The Old School House -

Anne chose the book they've just read, The Goldfinch - 

I can remember reading The Secret History - I shuddered with feverish excitment at the thought of the bacchanal - 

Last week, I stacked seasoned logs in two piles against the wall of the Old School - secret empires of insects were revealed when I moved the logs from under the brambles and honeysuckle - 

In the garden shed, next to my bike wreathed with ivy, near a nest containing tiny mummified birds, I found a sack of fir cones - 

When the members of the book group are served chilled Prosecco, I'll light the fire I've laid - 

I'll hear talk about The Goldfinch - I'll sit with Tessa under her drawing of a tiger  - she drew it when she was seven years old - 

Tomorrow, we'll drive Tessa and Charlie to Heathrow - the white Singapore Airlines jet will fly them to Australia, half a world away - 

I'll feel that there is a flower with icy petals inside my heart - 

16.07

September 25 2014

The snug

The Old School House 

East Stoke

20.45

The dour Cumbrian gardener ...

As we walked westwards, we spoke of the people we'd met - we'd heard many languages spoken on, or near, the Wall - we'd heard many accents - we'd seen clear eyed Amazons from the Tyrol, nimble gaffers from Lancashire - 

My companions were quick to greet these briefly met strangers - 

Each had their own story to tell, some aspect of their life to reveal, by word, gesture, or fold of a cagoule -

But we felt that the Cumbrians were a dour, gnarled, crew - 

An oldster had gazed with stony eyes at Alyson when she praised his garden - 

If you say so he'd said - 

He had a wild circlet of yellowy white hair for a rug - his cottage was next to a dark wood - Baba Yaga could have been hiding behind its tiny windows - 

July 12 2014

Between Harehill and Walton

Banjo and ukelele mayhem in The Golden Eagle ...

It takes ten minutes to reel from The Golden Eagle to Richard's house - 

As you do so, you pass the Jewish Cemetery, circled with barbed wire and sad trees - 

Urban foxes stare boldly into the headlights of Aquacars - fanlights glow above dark doorways - the starless sky hangs over late Victorian terraces - 

I sometimes wonder whether I'll wake up in Richard's hallway with a racing bike as my duvet - 

But last Friday we'd only been mildly carousing - 

Cliff greeted us with his wolfish smile - rest your ears inside he said - 

A five piece band was playing ferocious rock and roll - I recognized a cover of an XTC song - the speakers were infernal cabinets, twice the height of a man - 

My whole body throbbed with the notes of the bass guitar - the lean vocalist grasped his microphone with a feverish passion - 

Women danced around swaying boys - silver backs lifted their glasses of Seafarer - 

The calm youth behind the scarred bar was adept at lip reading - 

Then Cliff appeared, with a ukulele duct taped to his electric banjo - he insisted that the band cover The Ace of Spades -

The speakers lifted up from the floor - 

Richard later said that when Cliff gives out the results of the meat raffle, he sings The Leg of Lamb, the Leg of Lamb - 

23.55

September 13 2014 

The Golden Eagle

Southsea

Lunch by the side of the River Eden ...

Approaching Carlisle, we walked for a while along the north bank of the River Eden - 

We paused for lunch in the water meadows - the warm wind stirred the reeds and fragrant grass - seagulls were flying above the river - 

Penny scanned the shallow waters with her clever binoculars - 

Trees cast their delicate shadows upon the river bank - 

Before us was the northern city, and the last stage of our journey - 

Earlier this morning, we'd walked across silent fields of damp grass - we'd skirted seemingly deserted farms - an ancient barn had stone roof tiles thick with moss - 

We'd been aware of the gaze of patient beasts - 

I'd thought of John Gray's book, The Silence of Animals - 

We'd seen a house, with a splendid portico, half hidden by a dark wood - the house had walls of red glowing stone - 

Julia and Alyson spoke of their childhood, how they'd read Bunty and Look and Learn -  they'd danced their own dance of the seven veils in a 1960's hallway - 

1.45

July 13 2014

Bank of the River Eden

Near Crosby on Eden

Anne picks some blackberries ...

Late one September afternoon, Anne started picking blackberries - long shadows crept across the grass - small birds flickered in the cloudless sky - the river coiled across the valley - cows drowsed in the water meadows, closing their gentle wounded eyes - 

I watched Anne pick the blackberries, taking care not to squeeze the tender fruit, easing each tart treasure off its stem - 

The bright brambles writhed above Anne's head - soon her finger tips were stained with purplish juices -

I heard each joyous beat of my heart - I felt the cool moss underneath my bare feet - 

Later we would eat stewed apples and blackberries with ice cream - 

The blackberries would melt upon our tongues - 


18.00
September 6 2014

The Old School House

Coffee in The Stag, Crosby On Eden ...

In my note book, I scrawled 12.35 - we're in The Stag, Crosby On Eden - Doris Day is singing bravely -

We'd left Vallum Barn conscious of the fact that our journey was drawing to a close - 

For a while we walked between banks of ferns as high as our heads - the curled fronds were like delicate shepherds crooks - 

In a churchyard we saw the grave of an eighteen year old girl - the carving of a tree with gentle waving branches graced her pale gravestone - 

I could not bring myself to take a photograph - I thought of my two daughters - my remaining life would be desolate and icy without them - 

Inside The Stag, there were low ceilings, soothing beer pumps and worn flagstones - 

We drank coffee in a dark snug - Julia told me about a carpet she'd bought in Kathmandu -

Frank Sinatra started singing - 

12.35

July 13 2014

The Stag

Crosby On Eden