What a morning this was, the first real morning of Winter, the sun cool white and sharp, rising in a bright blue sky, the fields shimmering with cold dew. Shot in colour and b/w the difference is interesting, the b/w image like a shot from the Somme, an image requiring the words of Sassoon

Suicide in the Trenches
(published in the Cambridge Magazine, 23 February 1918)

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

This year our holidays are a series of days away including Stu’s race meetings. This last week we have visited Lavenham in Suffolk and Mistley in Essex. Very different places to each other. Lavenham is almost entirely a late medieval town, made rich through the wool trade, its nestles into the rolling hills and vales of the rural landscape. Mistley, on the other hand is industrial, the smell of malt on the air, but possibly just as old an established town, it sits on the Stour estuary between Harwich and Manningtree.

Last night I lay thinking, wide eyed and sleepless, troubled by the memory of the last TV programme I watched, not Corrie or Nigella, Nigel Slater or Spooks, though Spooks is worrying, especially if it were true, and one would suspect it might be. No none of those, but  ’Help! my house is Falling Down’, Sarah Beeney scaremongering, bowing walls, falling floors, wet rot, dry rot, brain rot, piled problem upon problem. I lay clutching tight to my quilt, Sofaman snoozing – loudly – me quivering, peering into the deadly blackness of the moonless night, listening hard for the creaks and groans that began to litter my mind. Surely the house is about to fall in, to come crashing down crushing me, Sofaman and the little kitty. Hell what to do?. I got up, still peering into the dark, wondering is the house aware of me looking at it, is it looking back at me, if it could speak would it, would it say ‘there are many cracks, all of them potentially fatal’, or would it say ‘hey, I’m an old house, of cause I groan, you’d groan if you were as old as me’. I went back to bed, far too tired to stay awake, I drifted off my head rich with horror, I dreamed in technicolour, screens from Paula Rego’s painting, Belgian public toilets, dentists, men in white coats and alarm clocks. I woke riddled with sleepiness and paranoia, spinning, and have spent the day fighting demons, noises and spooks. I need sleep and peace, pasta, and big soft flurry cushions, cushions are a woman’s comfort zone.

I want to tell you about my experience of the state of gastropub art, not the pictures on the wall, though that is now in my head and will have to wait to another day, but the creative splashes that get beamed out of their busy kitchens. I have seen the cheese plate transform via wooden platter to a slate based selection, some come adorned with fruit, celery and the chef’s own local berry chutney and others leave the cheese to speak for itself. Slate was initially a novelty of which I had some suspicion, mostly hygiene, knowing its soft and porous nature made me wonder was the slate one step beyond the boundaries that should define a serving dish. Seems though that slate must have undergone extreme H&S scrutiny as now this grey/blue medium is taking the gastropub table by storm. There’s not a meal that can’t be housed on it fossil rich surface. Some come in traditional white bowls but perch precariously on the riven tile making anxious young waitresses. Surely the slate is not meant to be a comic interlude in your evening meal but when Sofaman’s traditional Fisn’n'Chips washed up on the table at The Crown in East Rudham we were reduced to giggles and momentarily a hearty belly laugh, mildly alarmed the waiter fled. This was art meets food gone mad, why would you do it? F&C looks cannot be improved upon if presented on a large gleaming white plate, and what’s the square of local newsprint about? Sofaman soldiered on; taste not impaired by presentation but wondering further why crushed peas, I fear the chef too worn by creative hemisphere activity had not the strength to mush them. I am looking forward to further slate and art encounters throughout the week, and possibly finding next week that this phenomenon has spread to the continent.

Frustrated is a big word and brought to you today by Pipex Broadband, or should I say Pipex, yes thats PIPEX intermittent narrow/broadband. How hard can it be for a telecom service such as BT to bring to your door the power of communication? and the provider to be capable of managing the process. They manage to accept payment every month, accepting responsibility might be the flip side of the coin.

Poor sofaman has been on the case, very angry yesterday, some poor operative took the full force of a man well trained in the art of destructive debate, as a Roman in the Forum Sofaman took on Pipex operative No435 who sank under the weight if vitriol, crushed, wounded and bloody they babbled willingly, yet again, and became compliant.

This will likely bring only another storm of incredulity, a raging torrent of anger and frustration. Operative No435 will slink off, delete the carelessly tossed together record and leave no trace of the event. Such is the might of apathy.

I sat outside today in the sunshine, under the green awning of Starbucks, in the safety of its canvas arch. When the rain began to fall I felt smug, dry and happy. People scattering and running, me lounging for once the onlooker comfortable and amused instead of as on Friday wet to the bone.

As the rain stopped shoppers emerged from the safety of Specsavers, one man came and stood over me.” Do you paint’ he asked, my Windsor and Newton paint tin open and splattered in Crimson and Indigo, paint brush in hand. ”How did you guess?”, ‘I saw you painting’ he charmed, well spotted. ‘Do you write?’, I thought ‘Yes’ had to be the answer, he had spotted me doing that as well. “Professional?”, was the inquisition ever to end?, I fulfilled he desires ‘ Yes’, why not?… he looked pleased to have found such a multi-skilled human.

Its raining, therefore I am on holiday. The skies are flat, extending into the distance and merging sleepily with the pale grey trees that lie on the roads edge as it winds it watery way over to Welney. I have to go out, I always go out, out is the new in, out is where there are people to draw, buildings to ponder and eventually draw in frustration, this is not an architects mind. The dialogue I strike up with myself in the pursuit of architectural understanding is comforting, it wraps me in phases ‘well its an artists approach’, ‘colour thats the theme’… I allow digression from the ultimate goal as I actually don’t know what the goal is. Possibly some otherworldly Platonic perfection, unachievable, inhuman, and soul-distroyingly fruitless. So here it is, my acceptance of imperfection, if it were a building it would have its faults, cracks in the plaster, damp patches, un-tufted rugs, blown light bulbs, draughty doors and novelty shelving. That is my contract.

I am guessing that I have had nothing to say over the last couple of months, nothing of note anyway. Writing doesn’t come easily to me, a scant surface of words can flow relatively well but words with meaning are rare. Therefore a journal like blog is what I am resolved to do as no amount of  waiting brings forth pearls of great wisdom,  or volumes of Beckett like brilliance, I will never be like Alan Bennett or even Jeffery Archer, though any position that is significantly opposed to the later is fine by me.

Sometime in early autumn I broke my little petrol lawn mower by believing it invincible and attempting to mow too earnestly through the deep undergrowth. The poor machine was bundled into the boot of the car and carted off to the local mower hospital, new starter motor and blades and several pounds poorer I returned with a brightly buffed Huskervana. As the winter seems to have turned a corner and the ice and snow cleared I am tempted to drag the mower out from its hibernation and clear a few Walnut leaves using its double cutting action. Surely this mild enthusiasm for outdoor activity is, like the emerging Snowdrops, the first signs of spring.

Blimey!, I have spent the day clearing a pond of Reedmace and I ache, I spent most of my energy [what little I had] ungluing my wellingtons from the smelly silt and retaining my balance. I am pleased to say I didn’t fall over. The cutting of reeds at the base of the stem is the most successful way of clearing them and limiting their return. The dense growth of reed reduces the waters ability to fill the pond so the clearing gradually began to let water flow back in as we worked our way through the rustling forest. The water also percolates up through the ground and soon what had been relatively dry area began to look like a significant wetland. Two beautiful large frogs paddled out of a small channel that lets water trickle down into the pond from the A428 that runs close by, they glistened in the sun and swam off in the rising water. One of the wildlife staff said frogs won’t be in water this time of year, tell that to the frogs. I have had a fantastic day, the aches will fade, I hope, but I’ll be keen once recovered to do it all again.

The sky is grey and the wind is blowing, I am tired from work and a little stressed. I have a habit of concentrating too hard on the negative and ignoring all the good stuff. I guess its a cliche but the simple things that happen are the most important, the ripples in the shadows, whispers and fruitful exchanges that get lost in the noise of life. Last week I was invited to spend a lunchtime with a group of people who are taking part in a self-help scheme to get them back to, or even in work for the first time. I was nervous, what might I have to offer, a fellow ‘volunteer’ remarked that I must be seen to be able to contribute as I had been asked, overcome with an increased sense of self doubt I trembled from head-to-toe. The session was approximately an hour and a half and involved having lunch and chatting and then performing mock interviews, I winged it, it was not dissimilar to my Drama A level, improvisation makes me feel excited and alive. Apparently I was fine, jibbering a little too much I think but the girls I interviewed certainly didn’t feedback ‘what a plonka!’. I came away feeling thoughtful, sad but hopeful. They were all so keen to get something happening in their lives, some will succeed and some will fail but I have respect for them for trying, I really hope employees can see the same qualities in them that to me were so apparent. I believe that as employed people we are still only a couple of steps short of the streets, of drug abuse and of failure and that we can be too quick to judge. Employment brings with it responsibility, not just to yourself or your family but to the community, it can bring a level of social responsibility that now I see is rarely met.