The Edinburgh train ...

I'm on the Edinburgh train - 

I'm eating baby plum tomatoes - 

We're leaving London, racing through its edgelands - 

A few moments ago, I saw the Emirates Stadium, girdled by a frieze of titans -

Now we're passing an array of wind turbines -

My fellow rail travellers are silent, gazing at their mobile phones - 

Penelope's drinking tea from a clever polystyrene cup - 

Through the train window I can see the flawless sky - 

I look at a map of Lindisfarne - 

I sip my coffee - 

The man sitting opposite is on his way to Kirkwall - 

 

13.30

Tuesday 30 June 2015

The Edinburgh Train

The shining rails ...

Deo volente, shining rails will carry me northwards tomorrow - 

I'm sitting in the garden, listening to Songhoy Blues - 

I'm wearing a worn straw trilby and a blue open necked shirt - 

Tessa's reading Laurie Penny's Unspeakable Things - 

The lawn is dotted with white clover - 

The boys are playing their guitars in the dusty courtyards of Gao - 

A seagull is flying high above the pines - 

A warm wind stirs the dog roses and corn flowers - 

I look at a portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh painted after the raid on Cadiz - 

Anne's at a lunch remembering Bob - 

I wonder if we'll see the tide cover the Pilgrim's Path at Lindisfarne -  

My newspaper is full of sun lounger horrors -

13.38

Monday 29 June 2015

The garden

The Old School House

East Stoke 

Dorset 

Young apples and Fivepenny Cider ...

I drank the half bumper of Fivepenny Cider sitting under the apple tree -

Above me were the young apples, clustered amongst shapely leaves - 

Every two years, a rich crop of apples hangs heavy upon the tree - windfalls lie in sweet drowsy heaps upon the grass - 

The garden will smell of summer - tipsy wasps will stagger from windfall to windfall - I'll walk barefoot upon the warm stones of the path, breathing in the scent of apples - 

Each moment will be timeless, each breath will bring another joy -  

20.00

Sunday 27 June 2015

Under the apple tree

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset 

An afternoon at Fivepenny Farm ...

Jyoti's sloe-black eyes shone - she poured out the tea into boldly patterned cups - 

She and Sophie were talking about the wedding -

Jyoti wrote down what Sophie wanted in her graceful languorous scrawl - 

I'll serve the food in copper bowls she said - I'll add something special - my family comes from the south of India - 

I remembered the twilight courtyards of spice warehouses in Cochin, the smell of cumin and nutmeg - 

Jyoti's husband makes chairs with time hallowed instruments - 

The farmhouse was built out of oak and ash - the kitchen where we sat was like a cabin in a sailing ship - above my head stretched long graceful timbers - 

Jyoti showed us round the farm - two oxen answered to their names - there was a wind up gramophone in the barn - a wheelbarrow was piled high with bottles of dizzying cider - goats stared at us with yellow knowing eyes -

One of Jyoti's four daughters lived in a caravan near the wind turbine - one daughter had the offer of a place at Balliol - 

A cat was sleeping in the porch of the farmhouse, dreaming ruthless dreams - there were banks of joyous flowers - 

Beyond the sun drenched orchard were bright fields and dark woods - above was a blue sky brimming with cloud - 

When we moved here Jyoti said - it was just a field - we lived in a tent - we did this all ourselves - 

15.30

Thursday 25 2015

Heir yellow knowing 

Fivepenny Farm

Wootton Fitzpaine

Dorset

Driving to Fivepenny Farm ...

We drove into a hidden county, away from the sea, down mazy lanes between high hedges - 

I murmured the names of the silent villages, Catherston Leweston, Wootton Fitzpaine - 

I glimpsed bright fields and wooded hills -

Golden light fell from the sky - 

14.45

Thursday 25 2015

Wootton Fitzpaine

Dorset

Bottled summer ...

I've yet to drink the Fivepenny Cider - 

Jyoti had said it's a little sharp - 

In the barn there was a cider press made of wood as pale as stone - 

I held the bottle in my hands - it was like holding summer -

16.00

Thursday 25 June 2015

Fivepenny Farm

Wootton Fitzpaine

Dorset

Making coffee in the morning, thinking of Vientiane and Saint Cuthbert's otters ...

Each morning I make myself a cafetière of coffee - 

I'll sit in the room of books with its white walls and flowers - 

I'll recall for a moment the fragment of some dream -

Today I read a poem by Cavafy - 

Perhaps I'll go to Vientiane with Richard - we'll drink coffee on the banks of the Mekong - 

In the meantime, Richard sees young foxes in his garden - 

I'll stand on the shore where sea otters warmed Saint Cuthbert's feet - 

Later I'll walk up the Calle Degli Specchieri - I'll hear church bells ringing in crooked towers - 

16.52

Wednesday 24 June 2015

The Old School House

East Stoke

Dorset

 

All flesh is grass ...

Our nearest neighbours are Mr and Mrs Matcham -

Their tiny bungalow is shaken twice hourly by the London train - 

They're in their late eighties, still bright eyed, still brimming with kindly life - 

Mr Matcham worked on the railways, man and boy -  

One white Christmas he gave us a gift of raven black glinting coal - 

Mrs Matcham will call out when dinner's ready - we'll hear her voice across the rails -

Gerald - dinner - dinner - 

This afternoon, I walked out into the fields behind their bungalow - 

The green wheat rippled in the wind like water - 

I thought about past chapters in my life, and those to come - 

Somewhere there would be photographs of Gerald and Eve in their youthful beauty - 

All flesh is grass, I thought - 

All its beauty is like the flower of the field - 

15.15

Tuesday 23 June 2015

East Stoke 

Dorset

The blue suit ...

Yesterday I bought the wedding suit - Anne bought a dress -

The mall was a vast lustrous temple - within moments I'd succumbed to its unholy glamour - 

We shared a sugary Danish high above the docks - 

I tried on many suits, each time imagining myself in a different life - 

The changing room mirror reflected a pale apparatchik, a louche flaneur, an aspiring poet, a fervent radical, a troubled son - 

Then I saw myself in a blue suit, years like wings on my back, dancing with those precious to me, visible and invisible - 

12.30

Sunday 21 June 2015

John Lewis

West Quay

Southampton 

Summer Solstice at South Beach ...

I listened to some dark Mozart whilst driving to South Beach - 

It was four in the morning - from every house I passed, the dreams of sleepers were like pale smoke, or yellow feathers, drifting upwards from innocent pillows - 

The stone circle amongst the pines was the haunt of shadows - 

Shining hares danced in the broad fields -

The silky dreamlike sea was a purplish red, as were the clouds and sky -  

I was in an ancient world, watching the yellow sun climb out of the night - 

Amazons and slim boys swam in the golden sea amongst the yachts - 

As I sipped my Americano, the bright hour paled - 

I returned to the world where magic slept - 

05.30

Sunday June 21 2015

South Beach

Studland 

Dorset 

At high tide all this is water ...

I followed Penelope across silent fields, past riven oaks, towards Ower Bay -

Our walk had taken us through pine plantations, then sunlit heathland -

We'd seen a buzzard, scanning the bright land - they eat young rabbits Penny had said - 

Cows turned their heads to watch us go by - purple foxgloves were shoulder high - 

We walked down a stony track, shaded by trees, to reach the shore - 

The tide was out - seaweed filmed the shingle - a winding glistening channel led out to Ramshorn Lake - small islands were mysterious kingdoms - 

I looked through Penelope's binoculars at some oystercatchers - 

A cottage of old brick and stone stood upon the shore - summer greenery and flowers almost covered one buttressed wall - 

I peered through the windows into the empty rooms - they were in louche disorder - 

A dog leapt against the glass - 

At high tide, all this is water Penelope said - 

12.30

Tuesday 9 June 2015

Ower Bay

Poole Harbour