A place of magic

It’s a funny thing but good art – whether writing, painting, music or anything else – is inspiring, in the sense that it inspires you (or rather me) to do the same. It makes me feel creative. You’d think it would be the opposite. You’d think it would make you despair of ever reaching those heights. But it doesn’t. I suppose it’s the same with people. Good people are the ones who make you feel better about yourself and the world, and bad people – however beautiful, rich, famous or talented – make you feel worse. Or at least that’s my yardstick.

    Yesterday evening quite by accident I caught a feature on BBC2’s ‘Autumnwatch’. A nature writer (I didn’t catch his name) was talking about a man in the 1950s (I didn’t catch his name either) who wrote about the peregrine falcons of his native Essex. Both the commentary and the extracts read out were fabulous, and while watching I felt those familiar creative stirrings and remembered an incident from earlier in the day that hadn’t seemed important at the time but I now realised was a highlight.

The last nine days since Ellie was injured have been ghastly.

    Because the gash is in her side she hasn’t been allowed to run or jump as this might rip it open, so can’t be let out except on the lead and can only be walked for three ten-minute episodes a day. Because she is on the lead, so am I. Because she can’t run and jump, neither can I. Neither of us is free.

    We have to try and roll up her onesie as much as possible so that the wound gets some air but with her onesie rolled up she has to be watched because if she licks the wound it could get infected. Even worse, she could tear out the stitches. So, if Ellie is to have any fun at all and any fresh air during the day when she’s not walking, I have to be in the garden with her and there’s not much you can do when you have to keep your eyes on a licky dog.

Ellie with her onesie rolled up and her wound exposed

I’ve felt that my life was on hold and plunged into a depression that I hoped had been left behind with my orphaning.

Yesterday because Frog was at home I disappeared into Exeter saying I had to do some errands. He could look after the dog for a change. I needed a break.

    I didn’t enjoy Exeter. It’s always swarming with people but yesterday because of half-term it was even worse. I didn’t find anything I wanted in the shops so decided to buy some lunch and sit somewhere nice to eat it. I had an hour’s parking left and didn’t want to go home.

    In the past I would have gone to the cathedral green but most of it is now fenced off while the Royal Clarence Hotel which burnt down last November is rebuilt. And anyway, the last time I sat on cathedral green a seagull swiped my sandwich out of my hand. (It was a rather nice prawn one too and, as the woman sitting next to me drily remarked, the seagull had good taste: it didn’t want her pasty.)

    As I wandered, sarnies firmly clasped, I passed some ruins. I’d never explored them before so stopped to read the information board. It was all a bit complicated but as far as I could make out they were the remains of a medieval church and almshouses bombed in the war, with Roman remains underneath. They’d been left in the centre of Exeter as a memorial to those who had died in the war.

    I ventured further in, sat on a bit of ruined medieval wall in the sun and wrestled with the sandwich packet. No one else was around. A blackbird fluttered out of a tangle of clematis and hopped further into the ruins to a barred-off place not open to the public where some feeble-looking grass and a handful of wildflowers straggled through the gravel. I could probably squeeze through those bars, I thought. If I were homeless I might pitch my tent in there. The sounds of the city had vanished as if a perspex wall had slid up between me and the crowds that surged past. And, suddenly, I was in a place of magic.

Exeter's ruined medieval almshouses.*

That feeling was what I remembered when I watched the feature on ‘Autumnwatch’.

    Was it the place that created the feeling or is it a part of me that I don’t go to often enough? How long is it since I’ve taken time out – really out – just for myself?

If you want to visit the ruins for yourself, they're behind Wagamama.

* Sadly this isn't my picture as I didn't have my camera with me. It comes from this site.