under another sun

Having already uploaded my Skelton video last night, I had a freer day. I wrote some overdue emails to Robin and Richard and Jane and a quick congratulations note to Charlotte whose new collection, The Girl Who Cried arrived yesterday. Had a quick whizz through and they are magnificent poems. Then went for a long walk. A brisk, cool wind, but the air is noticeably fresher than usual. Encountered very few people, although once I was walking inside the hill fort, a man started screaming in the distance. He had lost his dog, and was sprinting about frantically calling for it, and he shouted at me from some distance to see if I had seen his white beagle. He seemed utterly traumatised and was shouting at the top of his lungs. Later I saw him reunited with his dog, who was capering about leadless and completely unconcerned. Noticing flowers here and there today. Purple orchids mainly, which I discover are called early purple orchids. I called Mum when I got back, and had a leisurely af...

Bluebells and Nazis Spent the morning writing my Skeleton story. Heard a yob like chanting of England! England! through my open window from a crowd marching from the station. It was a far right organisation who I believe were protesting in Brighton. Lorraine snoozing between reading the print off the paper. Then in the afternoon she grew insistent to see bluebells and hug trees. So she drove us to a beautiful wood near Burgess Hill on the other side of the downs. I have never seen so many bluebells in my life. It was like stepping into a kind of heaven where the woods were carpeted with a snow of the dusty violet blue flowers as far as the wood would let you see into it. And the air beneath the canopy was peppery with their faint hyacinth-like smell. Also we saw what my book of wildflowers calls early purple orchids as well as primroses and violets. And everywhere the trees in first leaf like, as Larkin said, something almost being said. Spent at least an hour and a half wandering abo...