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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
