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.