At last - Lime icecream on South Bank

It was OK.

But now it's broken.

My batteries refuse to recharge

- and for once I'm not talking about the laptop.

I feel like crawling back into bed all the time. It's 12pm on Sunday,
and I already want a nap. Again.
My brain is fuzzy, my eyes are heavy, I've barely done more than load
the washing machine and walk to the High street.
Even espresso has no effect.

Whole Foods Store - sucky customers

Came to the Kensington Whole Foods theme park in search of gelato** and boy, these have to be the whiniest set of customers ever.  I know its a tiny entitled minority, but seriously - in the 10 mins I've been here  - 2 separate snowflakes , one male, one female, standing in the middle of the floor screeching for assistance.  And I mean, screeching.

And then, as I pass through a narrow aisle past someone choosing "tea flowers", the paper bag I'm carrying brushes the back of her legs, and I hear "She pushed me - she just pushed me".

I'm more used to hearing that kind of WASH!!!!  from 4 year olds, and I swear all of these darlings were over 40.

**Ended up trying the Buffalo Milk Ice Cream instead; big mistake, it coats the tongue like lard, and has a very nasty  after-taste.  Ugh.  Threw most of it away.  Will go to Scoop instead.

Can anyone recommend a cheap, small but robust digital camera?

I can't use a camera-phone; not one that I've tried in the past was any
sodding use as, you know, an actual PHONE.

(I couldn't understand why the signal in my London flat got worse with
every passing year, until I was unable to make or take a call at all
unless I walked 50 yards from the front door - then I realised it wasn't
the signal, it was the annual phone upgrade. I bought a £13 Nokia 3310
- the model I had 7 years ago - and BINGO! - a working phone! No
camera, no mp3 player, no apps, no internet, but dammit, I can call the
fire brigade if I need to.)

Anyway, back to the camera - I want to be able to carry something small
that will snap household snakes, and the lesser known North Tyne turkey
bird, and the fairy castle I found in the woods.

There are freaking TURKEYS in the woods!

I though I must be seeing things - that the weird beast dodging among
the sheep was just a very ugly pheasant.
But no, the woods are full of turkeys. Escapes from a local small
holding? No such luck.

Someone has deliberately released turkey chicks onto the land so that
they can run a novelty "shoot your own Turkey" event in December.

Because of course, the practise of releasing non native species into the
wild for sport and profit and shit and giggles has never caused
ecological disaster before now.

After all, it's not as if the land is in a NATIONAL PARK or anything.
It's not as if the local river bank is invested with imported mink, the
water with imported signal crayfish, or that the red squirrels of
Northumberland are disappearing under pressure from imported North
American greys - oh wait!

Luckily for everyone (except the poor Turkeys and unwary drivers) the
birds haven't mastered the green cross code, and are being squished
flat, daily.

Turkeys. Wild Turkeys. Released in the Northumberland National Park.
Without even touching on the ethical issues of shootin' huntin' and
fishin' - who does that?
WHO DOES THAT!!!!

In honour of my Adder

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923
DH Lawrence

(Honestly - I haven't got over the intensity of the pleasure at meeting the Stone Caravan's adder at last.  It was just so magnificently other and like  Lawrence I felt obscurely honoured )

Also I have learned that a small bright fire of twigs will boil a kettle in less than 10 minutes -

- now I keep a basket of dry twigs and bark, gathered beside the grate,
and throw a few on when ever I want boiling water. It's almost as fast
as an electric kettle.

Picking up an armful while I walk across the field is now a pleasant
daily chore, and they smell wonderfully sweet as they burn.

Shifting challenges

When I took on stewardship of the Stone Caravan, the issues I was most
concerned about were damp, spiders and mice.

Four years ago the cottage was festooned with webs, great brown bellying
curtains of them, hanging from every window, across the stairwell, from
the low ceiling beams.

I feared they might be one seasons worth - but I've never found the
cottage to need more than two de-webbing session a year, and then I am
only wiping away the very smallest wisps of white from window frames and
keyholes (it's the draught - it carries small insects through the gap,
into the waiting spidey jaws)

Of course this could be the result of the all conker-ing horsechestnut
eco-friendly spider repellent - I've only sprayed the windows twice in 2
years, but who knows.

The first day I visited my new cottage I found a poisoned mouse expiring
on the doorstep (the same doorstep the adder was sunbathing on last
week). As I cleaned I found little splayed out mouse skeletons in hard
to reach places. And later, when I first lived in the cottage full
time, I just managed their presence - keeping them out of food supplies,
using peppermint oil to deter them, wiping down and sweeping daily,
never allowing food or equipment to come into contact with unwashed
surfaces...

They disappeared entirely 18 months ago, when the cottage was left
uninhabitable by floods, and weasels and owls moved in. And they have
yet to move back in...

The damp?

Well, it's a different place now, I open the door, warm fresh air
streams out, biscuits stay crisp, sugar pours, the bed is dry and aired.

But it is summer, and the winter was a dry one, so I have my fingers
crossed for the months to come.

It's pretty noisy at night right now -

- the ewes are slowly moving away from their adolescent lambs, and no
longer respond instantly to their bleating.

So the dusk is full of horny (literally - they have the cutest iddle
widdle horns) teenagers yelling "Muuuuuuuuummmmmm!
MUUUUUUMMMMMMM!!!!!!" and being ignored.

(I notice that Mum does eventually turn up - when I locked up last night
the sheep were all settling down in pairs and triplets to sleep)

Stone Caravan Summer Pudding

Step over adder.

Chase sheep out of blackcurrant bush.

Pick a mixed bowl of black- and red-currants.

Pick over the currants, (removing wisps of wool as well was twig). Rinse.

Put 3/4s of the currants in a pan with sugar, and pop on a slow fire.

Make tea. Read "Sharpe's Rifles".

When the currants start to bubble, take off the fire, cover and forget
for a while. Read.

Slice a good but slightly stale loaf of white bread. (I got one from
waitrose, reduced to 20p)

Line a pudding basin with the slices of bread, trimming them to fit, and
filling any gaps. Cut a lid and put it aside.

Fill the breadybowl with the cooled fruit, pop on the breadylid, a
saucer, and a tin can to weigh it down.

Forget about it.

Next day - cook the rest of the currants and let them cool down in their
juice.

Some point in the afternoon - turn out the pudding dish, and pour over
the extra currants and juice.

Admire the purpley yumminess.

Eat.

I 'ad an adder in tha house!

Yes folks, after 4 years I finally got to meet the snake what lives
under my house.

I found him/her sunbathing on the doorstep on Saturday afternoon - as I
approaches he/she slithered under the door and into the cottage.

Gorgeous creature, pale gold with a zig zag of dark brown down the back

Snake definitely more freaked out than I was - after all, I as a.)
wearing boots, b.) able to step straight over that arrow shaped head c.)
aware that Adder venom, though painful and temporarily disabling, is
almost entirely non-fatal to fit human adults, and d.) snakes dislike
the presence of humans almost as much as they dislike the proximity of
Gruffaloes.

I just sat on the steps watching Ada (or Adalbert) the Adder, turn tail
and slither back outdoors again.

I must get a new camera for moments like this.

Slow sad tears of frustrated greed

Oh - imagine the anticipation - real life evening events at Royal
Festival Hall! Not just the busy crowded terrace, bar, cafe, gift shop,
exhibitions, libraries, displays and real honest to god mini-favela
built out of brick and leg and fairy
lights...(http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-and-visual-arts/visual-arts/tickets/project-morrinho-southbank-centre-favela-1000045
- awesome!)

Surely now, as the sunsets over the river, and thousands of Londoners
flock to play on the decks and terraces, and to dance to the
gutpunchingly wonderful beat of the AfroReggae Experience
(http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/dance-performance/tickets/the-afroreggae-experience-54247),
surely now, they would open up the cabinet and exchange the £2.50 in
loose change hoarded in my hot sticky palm all day for the the
specially commissioned Brazil themed Lime and Cacacha nummy nummy
ice-cream ...

At least that's what I told myself ALL yesterday. The thought sustained
me through weary hours of bookkeeping, tick tock on the clock, fly
buzzing on the dusty window sill at work, "ping - you have mail."

6.30pm, there I am, I'll write for an hour, maybe two, to be sure that
I've earned it.

The hall is rammed, everywhere the "ching, ching" of tills, the bars
serving coffee and wine and cakes and pencils which are also drumsticks,
and hot soup....

And in one neglected corner, an icecream chest, with "Festival Brazil"
sticker, and a listing of wonderful icecreams. Unlit, unloved,
unstocked, just un-, un-, un- icecreamed.

Never mind.

I'll make Summer Pudding tonight, with the currants harvested from the
wilderness behind the stone caravan.

Anyone know about car cigarette lighter sockets?

All my stone caravan power woes would be resolved if I could charge my
laptop from the cigarette lighter in the (borrowed) landrover.

But I can't find a plug that fits it.

I understand there are two standard sizes for the sockets, but does
anyone do an adapter to help me plug the charger on one standard into
the socket on the other standard.?

And to add to the angst and frustration....

The Royal Festival Hall is stocking a Caprinha Icecream, by Mingella
Ices, as part of "Festival Brazil".

That's cream, sugar, lime and cachaca - frozen. In a pot. With a
spoon. I want SOOOOOOOO much.

But, because the Royal Festival Hall has no concerts this week, the ice
cream remains locked up in the freezer.

I can buy beer, wine, coffee, sandwiches, soup, pizzery things, and a
selection of gifts.

But no lime and cachaca ice-cream. Even on the lovely yummy HOT
evenings on the river.

All I can do is press my nose to the locked Ice Cream stand and drool a
little, sadly, and wait.

Aghhh Aghhhh Aghhhh

So having arrived back from Ireland with a mountain of work on the
script and no clean clothes, I am praying for an easy week at the
office.... (and not just me, one of the evangelical flatmate's
evangelical mates offered to pray for the same....)

And well, knock me down, what I get instead is an emergency report to be
completed, and FOUR DAYS working from 9am - 10pm, without a lunch break,
to deliver it.

And still no clean clothes...

I'm cream crackered.

How to start, how to start...

I've worked everyday for some 30 or so days (time off during the day, but never the whole day)

The deadline was originally July 7.  I met that (sort of) and got the feedback, and now I have to respond to that with the rest of the draft by August 1.

So I know I'll be working 10-14 hours for the next 17 days.

And I don't know how to start. 

Last week was definitely better spent in Ireland...

... rather than in an isolated off-road two room cottage in woodland in
the Northumbrian countryside.

I left the North on Monday night, just as the first sightings of the
gunman were being phoned in from Rothbury, and watched the search and
the stand-off the next day long distance, from London and Galway,
between meetings at the Film Fair.

Galway was cold and wet and fun and very very successful.

Now London is cold and wet - and I have a mountain of work to catch up
with and I am feckin' well knackered!

At least I'm used to "cold and wet" - growing up in Wales does prepare
you for a life spent under water!
I have gills!

Trust me, this is one of the few occasions when living in a remote cottage in Northumberland does not feel comfortable!

The Stone Caravan is not in the area the police are searching - but it
feels close enough.

I was there until Monday night, before heading to Ireland - if I had
stayed, I reckon I'd be snuggled down in my sister's place, with all mod
cons and neighbours in clear sight!

But, as it turns out, I'm in Galway, for the film festival - after
working 25 days without a break on the latest draft.

I hope I don't nod off, mid-pitch!

Jeremy Kyle has not worn underwear for 20 years!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/03/jeremy-kyle-interview

AUGH!!
I REALLY DID NOT NEED TO KNOW THIS!

It's very strange listening to John Humphries announce that the day
"will be dry but not sunny", when I'm sitting against the porch at 7.30
under a blue sky listening to Radio 4 (on solar power to boot).

Proof positive that the North Tyne valley has its own bizarre climate.

I've been pulling moss out of the guttering - or rather, all the
guttering I can reach. The bull wandered over for a look, blinked and
ambled off again.

As I do it, I am pondering the building of a mini-dyke just beyond the
top gate, to deflect all the run-off from the fell and persuade it not
to flow through the porch. It's only a trickle of water, but its
constant in wet weather, and it floods the loo and turns the garden into
a quagmire and washes relentlessly at the wall of the cottage.

It would have to be at least 2 feet high, wide and as stable as
possible to prevent erosion - I'm thinking of mixing in the remains of
some old (organic - wool and hessian!) carpets to strengthen it, and turf.

If I did that, then I could waterproof and repair the outhouse, (which
is rotting) and if I could do that, I could install a proper
composting/solar loo, and if I could do that, I could let other people
stay here.

Which is very appealing - but that's an awful lot of mud ,stones, carpet
and turf to shift.

This is the first summer for two years I don't have swallows nesting
somewhere in the house.

When I opened the door the breeze blew an irridescent confetti across
the floor; butterfly wings. Red Admirals seem to have settled and died
in every room of the house. ( I rescued two I found bettering
themselves against the window panes. I've no idea how they get in -
perhaps they arrived as caterpillars and pupated in the house?

It's 8pm, and it the sunlight is brighter now than it was at midday.
The last time I slept here was Easter, when sleet was still falling, and
by 4.30 the curtains were drawn. Now I can read on the porch until 10,
and walk through the wood without a lamp at 11.

PS -

The stench of trainers in an unventilated Italian sleeper apartment is
as the fragrance of honeysuckle compared to the range of whiffs
explosively produced by 3 hungover unwashed squaddies drinking carlsberg
and eating egg mcmuffins at 8am on the Peterborough - York stretch of
the East Coast line.

I also have beer on my keyboard.

Quick Summary of the past 4 months

January: Frantic writing to meet deadline for "She Writes" - mentoring
program for British Women in Screenwriting.
Also - a long weekend with Corry and John, travelling through London on
the proceeds of a writer's grant. They'll be living in an apartment in
a hill town in Umbria for 3 months (Bastards!). Made faggots.

February: Frantic writing to meet deadline for a careers conference at
my old school. I have no idea what I can say except - "a career in
screenwriting involves 10 years training and practise and something like
90% of successful screenwriters leave the industry within 10 years of
their break through". Not sleeping well - actually, that an
understatement. By the end of the month I am subsisting on 2 hours a
night. Zombification ensues.

March: Frantic writing to produce new draft of old screenplay at
request. Also write, design and print manage new company brochure.
Still not sleeping - except for the 15 minutes face down on the keyboard
after lunch.

April: Volcanic Ash, Flu and Florence: While everyone was talking about
the new Dunkirk, and repatriating brits from Spain via the Bay of
Biscay, I was heading in the opposite direction, by train to Florence.
It rained and I shared an overnight carriage with 4 terrified teenage
boys. Woke up to rain and the smell of feet. No one can produce
trainer- reek as effectively as a 16 year old male. Or sleep so
soundly. Arrive Florence. Eat Gelato.

May: Writing frantically to meet deadlines for Galway Film Fair. Summer
arrives - even at the stone caravan. Then it disappears again. Obsess
about Gelato.

"The moon is like a toenail, floating in a murky glass of wine"

I was stumbled into a meeting of a group which had "ambitions" to
represent all British screenwriters. It was a glum experience. I had
wandered along with a friend, a producer who had been asked to give an
"update and download" from the Cannes festival, which had finished only
a few days earlier.

It was a glum experience - The venue was a basement, lined many year
before with offcuts of lino and carpet, and furnished with donated
sofas. The audience stayed in their coats (it was cold down there) and
listened politely as the producer described the state of the market,
then, just as politely disagreed with everything he said.

In vain he explained that he wasn't in fact proscribing what writers
should or shouldn't write - he was only describing which scripts - of
all kinds - were making it into production, and how.

I think I understood what was happening. Would be writers spend time in
their heads creating a singular reality. It makes perfect sense to me
that they would continue to do so when they emerged back into the real
world. Sensitive dramas about Polytechnic lecturers facing the mid-life
crisis still not outselling lo-budget horror? La-la-la, fingers in
ears, it's not true.

Then we broke for refreshments. I queued at a trestle table to buy wine
drawn by a volunteer from a wine box. It cost £2.00. I looked down.
There, in my glass, floated the toe nail clipping, a chunky crescent of
keratin that seemed to sum up the evening.

I was invited back a year or so later, by the same friend, who had been
asked by the group's committee to help them increase membership and
income. He wanted them to hear input from a screenwriter who had chosen
not to become a member.

I didn't mention the toenail.

Instead, I told them that I read their e-letter every month in the hope
of finding something relevant, but they only offered the same handful of
classes, recycled endlessly, and which all seemed to be addressed to
small scared animals living in holes under the pavement:

"Want to be a screenwriter? Get over your fears in this friendly
workshop, where we will explore ways of getting your ideas onto the page
- by the end of the afternoon you'll be writing! - £5.00 plus small
charge for tea and coffee"

I suggested that once this might hook beginners, they should attract
working writers to offer master-classes for those were trying to improve
their skills - like impro to improve dialogue writing, or ways to
tighten scene structure, or tips on improving packaging for pitching.
It would cost more - but I, and people I knew, would certainly pay for
the extra value they would offer.

"Oh, no" they replied "writers are poor. And shy. Very shy. Oh no -
we'd never get writers along to classes like that!"

"Most the emerging writers I know are holding down some kind of job, and
are motivated to learn. You can offer concessions if you need to - but
there are also those who can and will pay!"

No - there aren't any writers like that"

"I've met them in screenwriting groups - and at Cannes"

"Writers don't go to Cannes. If they went to Cannes they'd be producers"

"I went to Cannes"

"Writers don't go to Cannes"

It will come as no surprise to you that this organisation, which defined
its membership solely as writers without money who were too shy to
actually, well, write, folded without trace a few months later.

Arrrggghhhh - so unfair!

- I've had a smear of chocolate ice cream on my nose all afternoon, and
no one at work told me.

And yes, this does mean I made it to the Gelato shop. One scoop of
bitter chocolate sorbet, one of raspberry. Mmmmmm....

No icecream in the stone caravan - at least, not now the snow has
(finally) gone.
Inside it's as crisp and dry as a biscuit.

Ok, ok - I am ashamed

Euro is teetering on the brink of a second banking crisis - and I am
still fretting about the availability of ice cream.

I sit at my keyboard fantasising about tall cones of soft icy intensity
- coffee, pistachio, rose, lemon, almond - and then settle for a dash to
the newsagents for a tiny tub of Wall's Cream of Cornish.

Or - maybe - just maybe -

If I write 10 pages in the next 24 hours, I will make the 30 minute
round trip and queue at Scoop in Short's Garden!

The worst thing about our little heat wave is...

... that it is impossible to buy really good ice cream within walking
distance of where I am sitting right now.

I've been spoiled - I spent a weekend in Italy last month, eating gelato
at least once a day - and now a magnum fished out of the freezer bin at
Tescos just doesn't cut it. Too sweet, too rich, no intense shock of
flavour to cut through the milk and ice.

Ahem...

... normal service will be resumed shortly.

Wet, wet, wet

As a neighbour noted at lunch yesterday, I have not enjoyed a single
season of dry weather since moving in to the Stone Caravan three years ago.

Well, not quite.

Spring 2007 was gorgeous. I remember limewashing the cottage in
February in shirt sleeves, then sunbathing on the rock behind the
kitchen. By May the National Park issued an early drought warning, and
banned barbecues and camp-fires. Everything seemed set for a glorious
summer - just as I prepared to quit London and move in. I packed the
hammock, and imagined lazy afternoon under the trees.

Then it started to rain - and it hasn't really stopped since (except for
the not so brief interludes of snow.)

The hillside is like chocolate mousse - and the woods are full of new
springs and streams.

Ah well - the third spring is late, but it is just about here; I saw
primroses in the bank yesterday. Perhaps the arrival of the sun will
finally herald a real summer.

Meanwhile - the Solar dehumidifier continues its heroic work keeping the
H2O at bay.

I just met my weasel - nose to nose...

... over the pond.

I've seen it before - but only as a streak of sleek red fur along the
bank behind the stream.

And I'm certainly familiar with details of its domestic live, having
followed a string a tarry black sprints back to its larder - a dead bird
carefully stashed in a hole in one of my duvets!

But this morning, as I was looking for a sheltered spot to pee in the
little wood behind the garden, I saw a small lithe mammal leap through
the comfrey leaves just below the SolarVenti intake.

And then it popped up to check me out - a tiny ginger critter, with a
white bib and a sharp little face.

Long may he or she (or they) remain, to keep the cottage mouse-free.

oh fer pity's sake...

... it's 11.45 pm and she is *singing* again.

To her ipod. The same whining phrase, over, and over, and over again.

I will need more gin to deal with this.

Tonight I am drinking...

A double shot of gin, over ice in a collins glass, a generous splash of
absinthe, topped up with indian tonic water.

Delish.

Does this have a name?
I don't believe for a second no one has done this before...

Frantically busy...

.... at work, rest and play.

I'm scrambling to finish my application to the Bird's Eye/Scriptfactory
'She Writes' programme - a year of professional development for eight
women film writers.

And I've just waved off guests, John and Corry, who were my very first
(practically my *only*) guests at the Stone Caravan, back in 2007. They
arrived in June in the midst of records rains and flooding. Oh. And
the birth of my second niece (my sister only reproduces during National
Emergencies. It's a hobby of hers...)

This time around I could offer them a better, toad-free, bedroom in
London. Corry is enjoying the fruits of a bursary to finish her novel
about the the regency underworld, and is spending it on practical
research (eating venison at Rules, founded 1797, hot pot at Simpsons,
founded 1757 and staying in Beckford's Tower at Bath).

I wish I could join them in the eccentric old bugger's tower - but I
have the afore mentioned application to finish by Thursday.

Hey ho.

Back in the city just in time to catch more snow

I can't help imagining all the gallons of melt water which will soon be
tumbling off the fell and straight through my porch.

I am an Auntie. Again.

Life in the Freezer - part 2

The Bridleway running behind the cottage; it used to run from the old hamlet - now just tumbled ruins in the bracken - and the nearest town, but now it goes nowhere, as a huge section was washed away in the 1950s, and is now impassable even on foot.

Life in the Freezer

Well, that was an apocalyptic walk home...

I've just negotiated deep snow, sheet ice, 4 inches of slush, knee high

melt water pools, hail stones and at least 4 guns in the woods above the
path - all between me and the next cup of tea.

I tried to look as little like a pheasant as possible, and made it to
the cottage in one piece.

I'm not sleeping here this week; my sister is in the last week of
pregnancy and I am on standby to babysit in case she needs to make a
dash through the snow to a maternity ward in the middle of the night.

Aaaand..... it's snowing again.

Thickly.

Actually, I can't bring myself to be bored with this.
Perhaps I should relocate to Lapland.

Things that make day to day life in a stone hovel possible

- in no particular order.

The SolarVenti:
No mould. No weasels. No birds' nests. 'nuff said.

Crocs:
as ugly as sin, but over the past 3 years they have survived fire,
flood, burial in several inches of mud, squatters, attack by starving
mice - and, after a rinse, they came up as bright and and yellow and
obnoxious as ever. They are warm, non-slip, keep my feet toes and
practically glow in the dark.

LEDs:
Bright and white and tiny and cheap, and all the power they need can be
supplied in a few cranks of a handle. Who needs electricity?

The wind-up radio:
I just wish it would charge on sunlight while I was away; the old one
did, but this one is stubborn, and likes me to pay attention to its
handle if I want to hear some Handel.

Paper Towels:
I buy recycled and use it for *everything* before it goes into the fire.

Hand sanitiser:

The blow-poker!
This is a superb invention - a long hollow steel tube with a mouthpiece
at one end and two prongs on the other. Wedge it between the logs, blow
- and rouse the dampest fire into action in seconds...

An insulated travel mug:
Keeps tea warm for at least 40 minutes.

Whisky.

It's snowing again.

Always, when I start to climb the hill I wonder how I could have ever
imagined living at the Stone Caravan, always, after 2 hours here, I
wonder how I can ever bring myself to leave.

The SolarVenti solar dehumidifier has transformed the place - on the
opening the front door the air that rushes to greet you from the
darkness is as cold as ever - colder perhaps - but fresh and as sweet as
the air of an 800 year old building could ever be. The rugs and
blankets hanging from hooks (beyond the reach of mice) are chilly, but
crisply dry. The matches light first time. The pages of books curl
like dry leaves, not like a day old salad.

There is still moisture here - at least enough to frost the inside of
the windows; even now, at midday, the North facing window is white with
ice flowers.

It's pumping away in the sunlight right now - or would be if I hadn't
discovered how to switch off the fan (cold dry air being a good thing
when I'm out, not so good when I'm sitting 5 feet from the outlet in
thermal underwear, trying to get warm.

Best £500 investment I've made to date. I can now strongly recommend
one to anyone with a dank spot in the house, a cellar, or north facing
wall, or condensation plagued cupboards.

Moving back in was tricky - the ground has thawed enough to leave the
pasture as soft as chocolate mousse under the crust of snow, and the
landrover, stuffed with bedding and warm clothing was bogged down in the
slope within minutes. I had to reverse back, all the way to the farm
and abandon the attempt until this morning, at 8, when there was enough
frost to keep the wheels free.

Now the fire is hissing, as is the kettle, and I have a hot water bottle
stuffed under my fleece to keep the vitals from freezing. Ugg boots
look after one end, a cap the other, and my fingers are left to fend for
themselves while I type (fingerless mittens perhaps?).

I have chocolate, bread, cheese, chutney, beans, tea, cigars (it's
Christmas) and whisky. Oh, and oranges to see off scurvy.

Plenty of work to do (the laptop keeps my fingers a little warmer) and
plans for the next big project - conversion of the old defunct range
into a wood burning stove with cooking rings!

Once in a lifetime!

How many decades have I lived to finally glide Northwards through
snowbound fields on Christmas Eve....

Imma gonna have to pull a copy of Pickwick off the bookshelf when I get
in and settle by the fireside!

.... and the results are in!

Forget the Strictly and the Xmas single, I am about to publish the most
important news of the season.

The Solar de-humidifier.

Does it work?

I climbed the hill though ankle deep snow (crisp, even and dotted with
sheep poo) to discover if the few days of sunlight we've enjoyed in the
past 6 weeks have had any effect during one of the wettest autumns on
record. Rivers burst their banks, bridges collapsed, Dubai disappeared
under flood water (tru-fax, I saw it happen) - but would the Stone
Caravan remain mildew-free.

The first signs were not promising - the path was a slick of ice,
curling from beneath the front door where the ditch had overflowed and
run through the porch.

I unlocked the door, stepped in and sniffed.

Fresh, dry air.

For the first time in 3 years the Stone Caravan smelt of fresh, dry air.

No mould. Mo mildew. No clammy air.

Glory be. In months to come I can store matches, salt, sugar and
bedding in my home without the risk of finding only a pile of soggy
green refuse on my return.

Oh my good ... I could watch this for ever

7.50 am on the train, in Lincolnshire, a dull pink, mauve and gold sky over fields, woods, rivers and farmbuildings, crusted with snow and scattered with crows.

Is this what living in the real North is like?  Because if so, I'm moving!  

Writer's resistence is a world-wide phenomemon

I had a great time in Dubai bonding with writers from the Middle East
and Asia over all the ways we find *to avoid actually facing the blank
screen/page" in the morning.

You'd think writers had the shiniest kettles and best sorted socks in
the UNIVERSE.

(So why can I never find a matching pair when I need one?)

In other news

- I left bread dough rising in the Saucepan Drawer in the kitchen
overnight. Yummy yeasty smells all over the kitchen.
Will bake it tonight - and take pictures if at all possible.

- Leave for the Cottage at 6.15am tomorrow. Will probably need snow
shoes, Thermos and emergency rescue flares.
At least I'll have bread to keep me alive in the snow drift my train
will be lodged in for the next 36 hours....

Back in the UK

Left a city lashed with rain, (heaviest rainfall Dubai has seen in several years, floods, animals lining up on Jumeirah beach Two by Two) and landed in one gripped by frost (at least it's seasonal).

Stayed awake long enough to get through the front door - then crashed on the sofa for 5 hours, stunned senseless by lack of sleep.

Got a text at 9pm, just as I made it up the stairs to bed; one of my producer's other projects, an Iraqi film about a child's unexpectedly dangerous quest for perfect kite making materials, was fully funded - several times over.

I'm functioning - but slowly, and I know I'm going to hit "the wall" before the evening is over.

Dubai - a whirlwind of adrenalin, perfume and strong coffee

I was pretty much exhausted when I took my seat on the plane - the week
of preparation, packing the night before and a day of rushing to beat
deadlines for my boss before I left the office for the airport all
conspired together to make me shaky. This was followed by a hour
standing on the tube, an hour in line to drop my bags, 3 security
cheques and 6 hours overnight in the air.

Let's just say - 48 hours after landing, I am still running on empty (or
rather, coffee)

Things keep appearing and disappearing. Today I managed to find my
missing power cable and lose all my business cards.
Oh, and walk into a plate glass door while holding a cup of coffee.
The only person who saw this humiliation was a charming Emirati producer
who swapped stories of similar mishaps with me.

So, it's possible I am hallucinating the whole festival.

Fragmentary impressions.

It's raining - the first rain here in 20 months. Go figure.

I saw "Un Prophete" by Jacques Audiard. It is a masterpiece. Even
after 36 hours without sleep every minute gripped me. Magical, gruesome
without being glum or grim.

Lovely laid back atmosphere - there are none of the scrums of papps,
herds of fans and packs of wannabes that make Cannes so frenetic and
unproductive. (No one is here pitching their trilogy of low-budget
torture porn).

Also, its hugely refreshing not to have the debate dominated by the US
market.

I like doing business in a culture that respects women for what they
have from the neck up rather than down, and is not obsessed with 18 year
olds. It's also wonderful to socialise without alcohol. This leads to
wonderful conversations with some very interesting people - and some
great opportunities to collaborate with writer/directors from the region.

I need a month's worth of sleep.

Juggling too much, I'm going to start dropping balls soon...

I suspect it's a familiar feeling at this time of year - the usual
lunacy of life and work and a 60 hour work week, plus preparing for
Dubai Film Festival (prep and print publicity materials, script polish,
dig suitable clothes out of storage, wash/mend, cut hair, replace broken
suitcase, track down missing cheques, order cash...) and for
you-know-what on the 25th (buy presents, pack and post stuff to
Australian rellies, etc), while booking travel for all my clients
(Turkey, Ireland, Bulgaria and Spain this week) and fending off their
flu germs.

Squinting at the timetable, It's doable, but only if nothing goes off
schedule in the next 5 days, and I don't make any bread.
Oh, and I don't try to find time to eat this week.

Ok, back to the schedule now...

Writers are strange wights

As are dolls' house makers.

I made bread last night

Crackling, chewy sourdough bread.

It *must* have been good.

I decided to take half the loaf into work to distribute at the breakfast
meeting (just showing off really) and flung it into a bag this morning.

Halfway across the park I look down - and there is a small crowd of grey
squirrels (I.e - 3) around my ankles, looking expectantly at the bag.

I half expected one to start tugging on my sock in supplication.

Dubai Film Festival - here I come!

Just got the accreditation through - I'll be in Dubai for the festival
next month.
Excited and apprehensive in equal measure - sounds about right.

Recession?

I very rarely travel between 5 and 7; I got out of the habit years ago,
when trains were crowded, hot and sticky. I made more sense to stay
close to work, drinking coffee and writing for a few more hours before
heading home.

Today I went home at 6.15 because I had bread dough rising in the
kitchen, and realised that if I didn't get it punched down and shaped by
7 I would be pulling out of the oven at midnight.

I was shocked to get a seat.
The train wasn't empty by any means, but 2 years ago, at 6.15, I would
have been travelling on my hind legs, with my nose pressed against
someone else's back or armpit.

Anyway. The bread is punched down and rising again, and I am in my
local boozer, drinking a very nice red wine and hacking about at Act 3
AGAIN.

I find myself checking satellite photos of the valley...

... to calculate how much sunlight, and therefore, how much air, the
Stone Caravan is getting in my absence.

Who knows, one day I may be able to leave salt, sugar and matches on the
mantelpiece for use when I return, and not have to polish mildew from
shoes and chair legs.

I have achieved total blackout

Once the bedside light is extinquished I cannot see my hand in front of
my face.

This is bliss.

Thank you.

16 hours later, on an entirely different wifi network...

... and firefox/google is *still* serving all my requests in SWEDISH.

I'm guessing you are single -

- balding guy sitting 10 feet from me in Cafe Nero.

Because I can still hear you suck your teeth at this distance, and if I
want to smack you over the head within 5 minutes, it is clear that any
marriage would have ended in spousi-cide over the breakfast table a
decade or so ago.

Also, woman sitting opposite. If I can tell from the tinny thud from
your ear buds not only that you are listening to Maggie May by Rod
Stewart, but *also* recognise the exact recording....

a.) you are playing this much too loud.
b.) you will be deaf before you reach 25.
c.) if an irate commuter doesn't kill you first

Heavens Preserve us - it works...

The sun finally came out at 10 this morning, and the solarventi started
a steady whirr, pushing dry fresh air into the heart of the stone
caravan; this it continued to do for the next 4.5 hours.

This is what it was supposed to do, as long as the sun was shining on it.

What was more exciting - when I came back into the house after stacking
the woodpile, for the first time in my recollection, the stone caravan
smelt of...

... fresh air. (and a bit a smoke)

It's too early to break out the (elderflower) champagne, but not too
early to experiment with closing the window.
Down comes all the green plastic mesh (to start a new life as a mat for
muddy sections of the garden path).
Up go the sashes.
Bye bye owl pellets - you won't be missed, I have a fine collection now,
thank you.
Bye bye dessicated corpse of the swallow that couldn't.

Now I have to leave you for several weeks; little solar fan, please do
your thing, and keep my house dry-ish!

Silent Night

The south east is battered by storms -here in the North East, all is
still, damp and warm.

The solarventi was installed on Wednesday, and apparently started
pumping warm air into the house almost immediately. Barry approves,
thinks every house in the area should have one.

Alas, I was not here to see it, so I have my fingers crossed that the
sun will break through tomorrow morning. It's too early to say if it
will solve the basic problem, but the signs are good.

Also on the plus side of the balance sheet - it is so unobtrusive it is
barely visible, even from the pasture - the panel is grey, and smaller
than the window.

Now it's dark, and I am having problems keeping the fire alight (the
woodpile, unstacked for 3 weeks, is damp and steaming) and have yet to
venture upstairs to make the bed.

Swedish is not one of the languages I read...

... so why the £*ck does the East Coast* line WiFi route all traffic via
Sweden, ensuring that all google results are served in Swedish -
including my Blog dashboard.

(* until 10 hours ago the National Express East Coast line, now
re-nationalised!)

What makes writing "cinematic" rather then "televisual"?

My own (very) rough rule of thumb...

When you express of the essence of the script-

- is it an image -

- or an idea?

I have always loved November; it starts with Halloween, which growing up
in Wales was celebrated with turnip head lanterns and apple bobbing),
then the local fair used to park outside our front door for 2 days of
thumping disco music, hot dogs, and ancient rides and dodgems. Barely
is the last candy floss stick swept away before Bonfire night and the
lovely smell of gunpowder ... and then the rest of the month unwinds in
a flurry of red and ginger foliage, early frost, slick mists and coal smoke.

The best, is of course, at the end of the month, when for once the
entire world does revolve around the correct axis, in a stupendous
celebration of the anniversary of the birth of - ME!

Why, I believe in the US they are so overwhelmed by the amazing event
that they call the festival of my birth "Thanksgiving" - and sacrifice
many Turkeys in my honour.

Colour me impressed!

The Ethiopian script, T'sion, has, in the 2nd and 3rd acts 6 distinct
narrative lines to follow, and I have always found it hard to
concentrate on fine tuning one without fracturing the others, or
breaking the script apart like a engine on the kitchen table.

In the past I have tried tagging and colour coding them on the page to
visualise they way they interact... Or writing 6 different threads and
reintegrating them.

But just like that engine on the kitchen table, I always end up with a
widget that gets left behind.

But I have just started to "grey out" any scenes that don't relate to
the thread I am concentrating on - literally changing the colour of the
words on the screen to the palest grey MSWord can provide. I can still
see the other scenes, I can still calculate the rhythm, the counterpoint
of one character's story against the other, while only editing the
single story as it winds it's way across 8 years and two continents...

Then, when I'm done - highlight the whole document, chose black - and
voilà! the whole script reappears.

I can't believe it took me so long to work this one out!

...my head hurts...

I don't know if the pounding is my hangover or the rain hammering on the
roof.

Either makes the idea of going out to stack my woodpile very unappealing.

On the other hand...

... now that I have actually reached the North, it is as bonny as ever,
blue sky from edge to edge, green and gold and ginger.

And I get to spend tomorrow stacking my woodpile!

More mechanical disasters...

The alarm clock finally gave up the ghost last night - I had ordered the
new part, but unfortunately the postal strike has held it up.

Luckily I noticed in time - I had a 7am train to catch this morning, so
tumbling out of bed by 5.50am was a must...
Unluckily, I only noticed at 1am, when I turned over and woke just
enough to register the weird display...

So - new alarm method needed. Easy - mobile phone... uh-oh, phone down
to one bar (was planning to recharge on train).

So, light on, unpack, find USB charger and laptop, plug in both, start
to charge... Just enough juice to ensure that the phone will wake me in
time.

Try to get back to sleep. No go. The minutes tick by, trips to
bathroom, check on phone, try again...

Finally fall asleep at 2.30, wake at 5.50, repack all the gear, dress,
sneak sleepily downstairs, cross London, catch train with 5 minutes to
spare.

Of course, if I had been 5 minutes late I would have forfeited the train
ticket and been forced to buy a £110 return to get North.

Which makes it even more ironic that the Train I worked so hard to catch
is now running... 45 minutes late, and the best National Express can
offer for the inconvenience is £15 worth of non-negotiable vouchers,
which can not be used for online bookings.

- Yawn -

As I recover from the week of mechanical suckiness and generalised rage,
I realise that the huge difference between the systems at the Stone
Caravan and the wider world is not that those in the wilderness as
simpler or less likely to fail (although not having electricity
certainly makes life calmer) but that when anything up there goes wrong
- I am wholly responsible for the disaster and its resolution.

And that makes life so much more pleasant.

Alarm clock fail? Well that means the sun didn't come up, so either the
world has come to an end, or it's raining.
Why would I get out of bed for either event?

Radio fail?
See above for lack of sun. Get cranking on the handle if I want to
listen to the Archers.

Plumbing fail?
Splash to spring with bucket, and remember to boil the water for coffee.

Coffee fail?
Well that will teach me to forget to put the coffee in my backpack,
won't it. Where's the rum.

Transport fail?
The landrover's stuck in the muck again. Gravity is my friend - on a
slope this steep it will just it will roll out again. And then, walk
dammit, 'cos that's the only way I'm going to get coffee today.

Today I have an overwhelming desire to hit people.

That is all.

Facebook hates me...

... over the past two days it has ground to a halt.

The mechanical suck continues...

At work...

One of the firedoor release mechanisms jams during the fire drill I am
marshalling, so that all my ducklings are trapped at the bottom of a six
storey iron staircase, and I am left outside in a stupid tabard,
wondering where they are....

Also, the scanner is down - just when I have to rely on emailing scans
of invoices/receipts/expense claims etc because of the ongoing postal
strike...

The embankment cafe has stuck a plastic hawk on its signage

This is presumably to dissuade pigeons from crapping on the outdoor
tables. I have no idea if this works - but it seemed to have very
little effect on the grey squirrel that was perched on its head eating
something filched from the cafe bins...

Is there a Deity (or Saint - I'll be ecumenical here) of small but essential mechanical objects?

a.) 6am: - My alarm light fails to light.

b.) 7am: (having overslept because of a.)above ) - The bathroom light
switch snaps, and I have to brush my teeth in the dark.

c.) 7.50 am: (running late because of a.) and b.) above) - The cashpoint
is out of order.

d.) 8.05 am: (running still later because of a.), b.) and c.) above) -
The coffee machine at the cafe is out of order.

e.) 8.10 am (now 60 mins behind because of a.), b.) and c.) and a touch
irritable in light of d.) above.) - My propelling pencil ceases to propel.

f.) 8.30 am Finally, with cash and a coffee in front of me - my netbook
starts to grouch in the few minutes of writing time left before I clock ...

If you know of any entities I should sacrifice, pray or plead to, please
send forwarding address, plus a list of suitable bribes for said being.

I was going through some writing exercises I scribbled in a class 2004 - when I was rather scarily unemployed and trying not to panic.

One of these was to describe an ideal environment…

I couldn't read the whole page (at some point coffee must have leaked into the notebook) but what there was described the Stone Caravan.

The fire, the coffee pot on the hob, the book, the sound of water, the view of the sky, the bench by the door for watching weather…

the only thing the Stone Caravan lacks from the list is access to the sea for walks and swimming.

The only thing the list lacks is - a toad under the bed.

I never showed the list to anyone, and I wouldn't discover the Stone Caravan for another 18 months after I wrote it.

But my sister must know me very well, because as soon as she saw it, nestling high above her new home in the North, she said "this is Tanya's".

 

 

So Jealous...

I have Hungarian friends staying, who arrived loaded with produce - including their own Plum Brandy.

This is when I learn the following:

When Brits have a glut of fruit - plums, cherries, apples etc - they make jam.  Or chutney.

When Hungarians have a glut - they ferment the fruit at home, and then take it to a local distillery, where it is legally and expertly turned into 60% proof spirit…

This is taxed, and there is a limit by volume - but how a wish we had the same civilised system here!

Meanwhile - at least I can toast Hungarian good fortune in some seriously fiery brew.

Cheers!

 

 

 

I got a phone call at lunchtime yesterday from Angela (a lawyer when she isn't writing) "I have just been given two tickets to see Spandau Ballet at the 02 tonight - are you coming."

Hell yes, (even if the response from the infant American lad sitting next to me, born while I hanging out at Blitz, was, "Um, who? What sort of music do they play…?"
(My dad did better, by the way - he remembered Spandau Ballet as the soundtrack to the Falklands Conflict.)

Well, last night they seemed to be playing very old music very well, and a good time was had by 20,000 40 somethings (and a few daughters) reliving their youth.

But, oh, my generation has not aged well.  It was an extraordinarily matronly affair, with a lot of pillowy bosom, echoing the Dome, and more cigarettes than HRT.

Seems to have had a strange subliminal effect.  Last night I dreamed of a decidedly ex-boyfriend, from circa 1988.  The dream was neutral enough, but the recollection in the morning made me want to gargle with something strong and minty.  Ick.

 

 

 

This village has the *nicest* Jehovah's Witnesses

One just came to the door while I was visiting.

"Hello, we're just going about the area delivering literature. Here is
a list of questions some people ask and the answers, with scripture.
Goodbye!"

And she was off with a cheery wave.

Of course, urban/rural hubris makes for better reading…

You know, the chick-lit about the prada wearing latte sipping urbanite
who decamps to a damp mould sprunkled hovel in the country, expecting
agas and dog roses and free range eggs from fluffy hens - and gets
instead toads and outdoor plumbing and a shop which only sells parmesan
ready grated in cardboard tubs and an industrial pig unit moving onto
the land next door.

The deep contented sigh of this happy rural slum dweller, toasting her
dirty toes while necking rum isn't all that entertaining… but the life
is perfect.

Now if I could only get the toads to wipe their little feet when they
come in from the rain.

Guilty secret

I'm not sure anyone really understands just how luxuriously indulgent living in a tower on the edge of the wildwood actually is.

I mean - curling up in the sun warm heather with a book and an orange and sleeping the afternoon away?

Walking by starlight in ancient oak woods, while a Tawny owl hunts overhead, all the while knowing that there is a fire, a bottle of rum, a lime and a kettle of hot water waiting at the end of the pull uphill? (Not to mention a teeny-tiny little saucepan of venison stew on the mantelpiece, poised to hop down and nestle itself between two blazing logs.

Or Sunday morning, curled in a big wooden chair, wool blanket wrapped around the shoulders, toes propped on the fender, a pot of coffee on the hearth (ok, not so great coffee, but still hot and black), two fat rashers of bacon and a piece of bread toasting on the log, and a really absorbing brick of biography of Hogarth to sink into…

All dinner and no responsibility.

It's a hobbit's life, I swear. Except that the toes on the fender aren’t as furry as those of some other members of the family.

Don't tell anyone else how much fun I am having up here!

damnation

If it takes an hour in the morning to build a fire, heat a kettle and
make a pot of coffee, you really do want it to be *good* coffee, not
peely-waaly stuff.
Should've ground some new on Friday, instead of packing a scoop from the
tin on the fridge.
And I've finished the all the rum!

At 5pm I walked down to the hamlet to pick up a duvet - I'd forgotten to
collect one when I loaded the landrover at lunchtime, and I didn't fancy
facing the first frost of the year without it.

The sun was still above the horizon when I started, and the woodland was
still, with patches of gold/green between the long shadows. Almost
nothing was moving, even the sheep were content to let me pass through
them, and I saw no birds excepts the raptors, kestrels and kites above
me, crows below in the valley floor.

By the time I emerged, with the duvet on my back the sun was gone, and
the valley was in shadow, although light still lingered on the fell top
to the North, where the cottage was waiting, about 30 minutes walk away.

I'd thrown a large log on the fire when I left the cottage an hour
earlier, and hooked the kettle against the bars, so as to have a mug
full very near boiling when I got home.

As I passed the small holding behind the hamlet, a little party of geese
were forming a conga line around their water trough, wandering wither
and thither in a patient waddle, quite unlike the mild curiosity of wild
geese at dusk. They didn't even look up as I passed.

It's amazing how much you can see in the dark. The colours have gone,
but the form survives, in close-up, in shades of grey. I just couldn't
see more than 10 feet ahead - except where, in the distance, the
landscape rolls away in places towards the river, and the last last from
the west made a bank glow a ghostly silver some way ahead. An owl
swoops past my head, westward.

I do always carry a headlight at night - with a red light setting, so
that if I have to use it my night vision won't be too badly affected.
But I didn't need it. I must know every step of the route by now, even
if it is eighteen months since I last walked it past nightfall. And I
have a mobile phone, so if I did roll an ankle...

Anyway, I didn't need the light on the railway track (although in place
the cutting is deep and almost all in shade. And I didn't need it on
the footbridge over the cutting towards the hay meadow.

That's where I stopped to check which stars are out. There were one or
two - but a sense of the billions points of sun waiting just beyond the
veil of atmosphere, thinning to nothing, second by second.

Now that is a lot more terrifying than being the only human being in the
sheep's line of sight - being the only apparent human being on a patch
of rock in sight of all the suns.

I only needed the light once; after crossing the oak wood and the Roman
ruins the paths (carved out by sheep) divide and dip down to a small
stream, which is bordered here and there by wire. Hit in the wrong
place, or at the wrong angle, and you get wet, or stuck, or both.

But after that, it's a short walk up and through two pastures to the the
clump of pines which hides the cottage from almost every angle. Not even
fire light spills out - until I open the door - because from this angle
the cottage has no windows...

When I've made the tea I sit on the bench by the door, watch stars and
listen to the thump thump of falling leaves, and the rustle of small
unseen animals.

The cottage as bright and clean as the sky.

Genuinely welcoming and comfortable for the first time in more than a
year. Something large got into the back room - something large and
slimy! - but I can close that door, and forget the room until the
building work is complete.

Northumberland is in its most gorgeous outfit - "bonny" as the guy who
picked me up at the station said. Tunnels of gold and red oak crowding
over the sun-lit road, a blue sky full of crows and kestrels. But cold
- it will freeze tonight!

My toad-love is sealed when a find a toadlet - smaller than the first
joint of my littlest finger - on the door step. It glares at me a
wiggles away with adolescent energy.

Door open, into the hall - and I discover that Crocs are not quite as
destructible as I'd believed - there is a little pile of bright yellow
chewed Croc resin, as much as a mouse could produce if it worked very
hard - next to one, the right I think. I hope it was tasty, as I doubt
it was nutritious!

But oh crap - I've remembered the rum, but not the duvet. I'll have to
trail back down the hill to collect if - if it can even been found after
10 months in storage!

Shopping list for weekend

Socks
Whisky
Matches
Bread
Cheese
Coffee (the last batch grew mould!)
Bacon
Green stuff and oranges - to prevent scurvy!

Sleeping in the Stone Caravan tomorrow, and the weather just turned a
tad chilly. I know I've slept up there in cold weather before (hell,
I've slept with ice forming on the walls around me), but that was when
the cottage was well aired, and when I had been well seasoned by living
up there all the way through the autumn.

I'll be packing thermals and whiskey, just in case.

Of course I will also be taking the new netbook, and a sack full of
battery. So when I'm not scrubbing the kitchen floor (sharp sand, to
clean off generations worth of mud and mould) I'll be writing....

I just discovered "write-or-die" by Dr Wicked
http://lab.drwicked.com/writeordie.html

Fabulous - gets me typing every time. Just try out those eeeevil sounds
on the normal mode.
And he's working on an off-line version, which will be even sweeter!

Working hard to finish the Ethiopian script, it just seems to crawl along. 

I'm also transcribing a stage script which I put together 10 years ago  (Oh crap, 10 years?  I am soooooo old!) - which exists only as a photocopy of the Stage Managers notes, some scribbled diagrams and a handful of excellent photographs.

My Lead Actor was single but dating at the first read through - by the last night he was pregnant and engaged.  I bumped into Mrs Lead Actor a few months ago, and the strapping pre-teen who was conceived one night after rehearsals.  So old!  So very very old!

Making a stage play is so much quicker than writing a film - you just need a room, some people with excellent memories for movement and language, and lots and lots and lots of gaffer tape.  You can do it in a weekend.

I wonder if carrying gaffer tape will speed up the writing?

 

The wind has shifted to the South East...

... bringing London a sudden shocking lungful of cold, bright, blue,
briny air.

Best day of the year so far - I have to get out of the office and down
to the river bank.

Snoozles

Ever since I got back from the coast I have been sleeping right through, eight hours a night.  Blissful.

Must be a side effect of all that swimming. 
In the sea. 
In September

 

 

 

 

Bought the Solarventi unit for the cottage, and I am just waiting for delivery

I got the smaller unit in the end - it's the core of the cottage that
gets most damp, and the 20 m2 unit should be enough to deal with that.
Anything The race now will be to get it fitted before it gets too damp
up there.

Northumberland is the officially the coldest county in England, but it
does average 1350 hours of sunlight a year, and that is 1350 hours of
dry (warm(ish) air being drawn into the stone caravan. And some of
those hours occur in the winter. Honest.

Weekend notes

I walked for four hours through the near deserted Sunday morning City of London (that's the bit which lies within the Roman Walls and is now full of bankers…)  I was one of the London Walks, which are always good value for money (£7.00 for a first rate running two hour commentary on the buildings passed and their history).

Then I walked a while longer, through St Paul's and down Fleets street, and had tea with a friend in the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House - there is a basement courtyard there, embedded in the classic stone work, like something Piranesi might have designed as a catering outlet.  And lovely fresh scones with home made plum jam and sweet disorganised service.

Got notes on the screenplay between bits of scone and clotted cream.

Legs ache now!

This morning I reopened the files on the screenplay, ready to write the next draft…

Dun-dun-dun…..

 

At the sea-side...

Saw an GINORMOUS jellyfish washed up on the sand.  On the Pembroke coast.

 Seriously, the umbrella bit (pale blue, with a gorgeous royal blue scalloped edge) was at least 70cms across, the frilly dangly things pink on one side, blue on the other.

 At the first mention of the word JELLYFISH the two year old  niece (the one that wants to be a Girl Pirate) swarmed straight up onto my shoulders, and refused to set toe to sand for a good 20 minutes afterwards.  I swear she has prehensile feet, or suckers of some sort - you can't detach her once settled.

 As she pronounces it JELLYFIIIIIIIIIISHESSSSS, with a long hiss, it was disturbingly like being assaulted by Gollum in an all-in-one floral bathing suit.

Typical! You cross the border into Wales and the sun disappears.

I swear it dropped 3 degrees within seconds.

A-musing

It's fun having a muse.

I found one the other day - rather in the same way I found the toad; it just popped up and looked me in the eye.

By a muse, I mean someone (a living individual or a personification) who inspires confidence in an artist's own ability.

Dante had Beatrice, Petrach had Laura, Givenchy had Hepburn, Sappho had...  anyone know if Sappho's adored was ever named?

Mine seems to be a 20 something hipster, with great taste in shoes… 

I'm trying to make a list of other muses, so I can try to pin down the essential features of the beast.

Any ideas?

I have worked out why the bastard ironing board broke...

.... roomie off the hook this time.

Still need to buy a new one though!

How the $@*^% do I manage to find the ironing board broken - twice!

Twice. In four months. Two boards, identical damage. Twice.
And not cheap ones, either. Two £35 ironing boards.

Two people live here. One buys ironing boards and then 4 months later
has to throw then away.

(I tried repairing the latest - but I really don't fancy taking a risk
that the board will collapse while I'm working on it. Those irons are
*hot*.)

So - what the hell do I do now?
Go to work crumpled until I can buy another one - and then keep that one
locked away in my own room.

The Ironic thing - I HATE ironing. Hate. Hate. HATE.
I just hate being crumpled at work just a teeny-tad more than ironing them.

RAGE.

Weird and nasty things, writers

- but only if you confuse the work with the creator.

 I catch myself doing this from time to time myself - confusing fiction with the writer's own conscious thoughts and desires.

For example I woke up in the middle of the night last week seriously freaked out by something a certain young writer/performer I know had written on a flyer for a gig he was playing.  It was silly and scatological and shocking, which was the whole point - It really isn't likely that it reflects his social self, even if it does titillate and/or gross out his imagination. 

And as soon as I had woken up enough to brew up a pot of coffee I knew that.  What a relief.

It's like me and my tattoo thing.  Quite independently three of the pieces I've written - including two I have been paid for - have featured protagonists who acquire tattoos as part of their journey. 

 Now, clearly I must be interested in the tattoos, in their visual impact, the way the record moments in time, the way their permanence contrasts with the impermanence of the of the human body.  But that doesn't mean I have - or mean to get - a tattoo myself. 

In short - what we write may come from our unconscious desires, but should never be confused with what we are or want.

Anyway - here is a snippet from one of those tattoo stories:

 +++++++++++++++

"I wrote to you, every day.  I had such stories to tell – about the sea of ice at the cape, and the lightening strike, and the albatross that followed us for 17 days, and exactly why the Otahitians made the Barber’s pigtail into a belt for their king, and what the stars look like in New Holland, and why, when everyone else was deciding whether to go in the boat with the Captain or stay on the ship, why George and I stayed behind.  About George.  I think I wanted to tell you about my friend George.  And about how scared I’ve been all this time. 

"There was one afternoon, when I was lying in the house we shared on Otahiti, face down in the leaves, and my Tayo –Tayo means Friend, Godfather – My Tayo was tattooing the feathers on my shoulder.  The needles felt like fire.  Going in and out, hammer, hammer, hammer without rest, and I was not going cry out. George held my hand, and the needles burned away, driving the soot into the skin.  I didn't cry out, but somehow tears kept running down, and into the leaves until I could taste the salt - and suddenly I thought – “At last, now, something is changing me.  All those maps and letters and journals and drawings I made – now they are making me.  It will all be on me, in me, for ever."   

"No one will listen to this now.  My Uncle Pasley and Mr. Const do not wish to hear of it.  They tell me I must never speak of why, and how, and what I was thinking or feeling.  They tell me I’ve to be discreet, mute, or else they’ll not have the power to save me. Because I stayed behind on the ship, and now I’m the only officer they have, and they cannot but hang me for all the rest.  I’m sure they’ll hang me. 

"The letters I wrote to you, the dictionary, the maps - they all floated away in the wreck. I couldn't hold them.

"The Barber could not break the chain we sank, and he drowned  there in the cage.

"George swam with me, but a staved plank struck him.  I turned, and he was gone. 

"We swam on, through a slick of paper and wood and bread, two hours, to reach a tiny strip of sand and coral. 

"And when we got to the cay, pickled in salt water, and naked under the sun, like lobsters on a fire, our skin came off in strips, great handfuls of it.  Hanging off our backs and snagging on the coral, leaving little scraps behind, with ships, and names and dates and feathers still black on them."

The swallows have gone, leaving mounds of feathers and poo - and another little corpse, trapped between the panes of glass.  This time I can't get the cadaver out by pushing or pulling, so it will have to "shrink" a little first. The maggots will help....

 
The curious thing is - I never feel sick in the cottage.  It's dark, damp, dusty and full of wildlife - and in January well below freezing for a large proportion of the day.

 
But I have never had a stomach upset, or a sniffle, or a headache or a cough while I was there.

 
But as soon as I leave for the rest of the world -  The germs just pounce.

 

 

 

September has to be the best month in Northumberland

I'm sitting outside the cottage in warm - almost over warm - sunshine,
cooled just enough by a silvery breeze that smells of grass and honey
(honey? No, no idea why, but it's gorgeous). The sky is enamel blue,
with the faintest curlicue of cloud high away in the south. Everything
that should be green is still green - but with the sense that the
fireworks of red and gold and brown are just waiting, breathless for
ignition.

And it is dry. The pasture is firm, the garden is barely boggy, the
cottage is sound and clean (and dark and cool and owl free).

No decision on the solar panel yet - because it has been pointed out
that it might be subject to a development grant.

I confess - I'd rather spend the money now, and keep the cottage
dry(ish) over the winter, than wait 3-4 months and get half the cost back.

But I might apply for a better loo.

Should I?

I am wibbling over buying one of these:

Solarventi Solar power dehumidifer

 If it works it would be the answer to so many problems.

 The theory is simple.  When the sun is shining the humidity outside the house, 10 feet off the ground is always drier than the air inside.

 The gadget is an PV panel, attached to a South East facing wall, which powers a fan to draw this relatively drier air into the unit, drive it through the body of the panel, where it is passively warmed, and then push the fresh, dry(er) and warm(er) air into the house at floor level.

The introduced air displaces the stagnant damp(er) air out of the house through the chimney and other leaky bits.

Which means (a) the cottage would be dry(er) and (b) less mouldy and (c) a teeny weeny bit warmer throughout the year and (d) I could close most of the windows that the owl and swallows etc are using.

I have the ideal wall, it's around £500 and Barry would be the ideal man to fit it.

If nothing else - it would be a fascinating experiment!

So - buy or not buy?

ETA - rats, just noticed, they had a 10% discount offer which ran out yesterday...

 

Must be feeling better -

- I have the energy to put lippy on.

Uggh. I just want this cold to go away

That is all.

In other news

I have arrived back in London with a vile cold.

The cottage is finally fit for human habitation - and I am shivering and
coughing in the city.

Toads need love

Turns out Barry the builder isn't the only one who isn't keen on toads.

People are intrigued by the owl. Only one neighbour winced, and nodded
sympathetically , and said "lot of mess, owls"

But almost everyone has flinched at the mention of the darling, mild
little toad, who only squatted under a spare bed and ate flies, and who
heaved himself so obligingly away when I carried him from the danger zone.

Grown men, farmers, soldiers, diplomats, men who have rescued sheep from
15 foot snow drifts, drunk tea with the Taliban, or sat face to face
with Gaddafi, have turned pale and swayed at the mere thought of my toad.

Just what is the toad's terrible secret?