Year: 2024

Writing a crime novel is just like making mince pies. There’s the set up – placing all the equipment on the table – the building of the story – making the pastry, making the mince meat (or, if you’re me, modifying the mincemeat you bought at the supermarket) – there’s the challenge – just how thin can your roll the pastry to get one more pie out of it? – and the crisis – oh no, not enough pastry/mincemeat (the two never seem to match). Finally, there’s the resolution – placing the little hats on top of the filling and triumphantly sliding the trays into the oven. What!? Total rubbish. Writing a crime novel is nothing like making mince pies.

I find the latter quite relaxing, can do it with half my brain concentrating on some BBC Sounds drama or whatever weird version of obscure Christmas music Radio 3 happens to be playing. The whole process takes about an hour plus washing up and presto! the little lovelies are on the wire rack cooling, ready to eat. Writing a novel, on the other hand takes an unspecified amount of time, occupies my brain every waking minute (and some of the sleeping ones – detectives and vicars (don’t ask) have begun featuring heavily in my dreams – and I find myself pacing up and down along the seafront without seeing the sea, despite the fact that it’s crashing angrily on the shore and gouging great holes in the shingle. But Christmas must be attended to and, despite my best efforts to carry on solving murders (two arrests so far), it’s blatantly clear that DCI Truman isn’t going to get her man before Epiphany. Hey ho.

One of the best things about Christmas is the exchanging of cards and emails with distant friends and family. I love hearing news of other people’s lives; people I might not have spoken to for a year. It makes me feel expanded, as if I’ve grown tentacles that are reaching out across land and sea. I feel connected, filled in and anchored in the world, rather than ephemeral and opaque like a pencil drawing of myself. 

Everything I read is interesting, not just the births, deaths and marriages, but also the little details about this person’s garden or that person’s operation, the small tribulations and the large traffic jams, the meet-up with so-and-so and the unfortunate (but not too serious) accident of whatshisname. I’ve never been into gossip in situ, but I love to hear the latest from habitats of our past. It’s affirming. It substantiates my life.

For the first time ever, we have an artificial tree. I know it makes sense but it still feels wrong. I miss the smell of the real thing, the quirky shape of the branches, the turning this way and that to find its best side. Dusting off the big red tub and getting out the steps to reach the top of it. This one came in a box. It’s small, symmetrical and conical. No steps needed. Our usual set of lights are far too long for it. Adrian fetches the box of decorations from the attic and I’m determined to get every last bit of Christmas tat on this very little, very unnatural pretend tree.

So, physio tomorrow, a visit to the supermarket and then nothing to do but wait for it to happen. Alex and Lia will arrive on Christmas Eve and then it’ll all kick off. Whatever you do, I hope you have a happy Christmas time and, if you don’t, here’s a poem. 

The Contributors by U A Fanthorpe

Not your fault, gentlemen,

We acquit you of the calculatedly

Equivalent gift, the tinsel token.

Mary, maybe, fancied something more practical:

A layette, or at least a premium bond.

Firmly you gave the extravagantly

Useless, your present the unwrapped

Hard-edged stigma of vocation.

Not your fault, beasts,

Who donated your helpless animal

Rectitude to the occasion.

Not yours the message of the goblin

Robin, the red-nosed reindeer,

Nor had you in mind the yearly

Massacre of the poultry innocent,

Whom we judge correct for the feast.

Not your fault, Virgin,

Muddling along in the manger,

With your confused old man,

Your bastard baby, in conditions

No social worker could possibly approve.

How could your improvised, improvident

Holiness predict our unholy family Xmas,

Our lonely overdoses, deep frozen bonhomie?

It’s the sixth day of Advent and I have two things on my mind, neither of which has anything to do with Christmas. The first is the plot of the crime novel I’m writing – it’s becoming increasingly convoluted and wacky as the days go by. I’m venturing into the world of AI and that’s enough to do anyone’s head in. Then there’s the operation on my knee scheduled for this coming Monday, the result of a torn meniscus that won’t heal. I’m running along the seafront and thinking, “do I really need to do this? I mean, I’m running, albeit with some pain. I’m OK.” And then we take a twenty minute walk into town for a lecture and the knee hurts all the way, so maybe . . . 

In fact, we have been making plans for Christmas, with Alex and Lia. This, with the aid of Google Meet up and a nifty bit of workshopping software that Alex uses routinely with his clients. We have three headings: What Matters, What Doesn’t Matter, and What to Avoid. It’s all about agreeing to the sort of Christmas we all want. There’s little compromise on the first – if it’s really important, you have it – and third – if it makes you want to hide under the duvet until January, then, hey, we can do without it – but the middle category leaves lots of scope for negotiation. We had hoped Kate would be participating in this process, but she has made plans to spend Christmas with her boyfriend in Copenhagen. She’ll be living and working there from January and want to get on with the paperwork. She’s home at the moment and we’ve been talking about the post-Brexit bureaucracy of work permits and visas, the sorts of things that, before 2019, were unnecessary and, for EU citizens, are still unnecessary. The words “shoot” and “foot” come to mind. Good one, Britain. But the sun shines, and we head to the Downs for a family walk, enjoying being together and chatting about things that matter and nothing in particular.

Last night we had our final play reading of the year followed by a Christmas party. Each Advent, the group reads one of Dorothy L Sayers one-act plays based on the life of Christ. Titled The Man Born to be King, it was commissioned by the BBC in 1941. There’s a lot of artistic licence in the dialogue as well as an eye on the practicalities of the miracles, I mean it’s all very well feeding 5,000 people but how do you organise that without getting mobbed? It’s a very human story written at a time when making up the words of biblical figures could be considered just a tad controversial. But, in truth, she sticks closely to the gospels and the plays were and still are extremely popular. 

We’ve just had friends, Angie and Nick, to stay, a fleeting visit and non-stop chat, catching up after at least two years. They’ve recently had twelve French cellists to stay, a feat in itself but then Angie has also organised concerts for them across Scotland for the Franco-Scottish society. There’s something very seasonal about the idea of twelve French cellists: “Eleven pipers piping, Twelve French cellists.” All rather Franco-Scottish, and far more marketable I’d have thought. I mean, who wants twelve drummers drumming?

The media news doesn’t get any better – the collapse of Barnier’s government, in the wake of Germany’s crisis; the failed military coup in South Korea; the spread of war in the Middle East to name just a few of my unfavourite things – and it seems the only solution is to stop reading it. We listen to Radio 3 and concentrate on the positives. One such thing is our friend, Adrian Chappell’s, exhibition at the Lansdown Hotel. He has completed his series of sixties pop-art style reflections of events from his life in the 50s and 60s and it’s wonderful to see them all in a row. 

Then there’s the Meads Christmas market held on the street of our local ‘village’. It’s organised by our neighbour, so we go along, drink some mulled wine and take in the festivities. A local prep school sing us a variety of carols, a performance which, I have to say, is decidedly underwhelming. It makes us appreciate the music teacher our children were fortunate enough to have: Ian Sloan, who coaxed wonderful harmonies out of young piping voices. Both Alex and Kate were deeply fond of him and continued to sing in his choir until they left school at eighteen. But Kirsty (our neighbour) has achieved a little miracle, an annual event that is now a much anticipated fixture in the local calendar. ‘The first year I did everything,’ she tells us. And I can believe it. Innovation can be a very lonely activity. 

Just when you think the world can’t get any weirder, it does. The American people elect Trump as their president – again. And then my sister tells me that she is delighted with the result because this man is a protector of women’s rights and a fighter for freedom. What?! In which fantasy world is that true, I’d like to know.

The orange man has begun picking his executive team: a load of billionaire conspiracy theorists. Well, why wouldn’t you? An anti-vaxer as a Health Secretary, a climate-change sceptic as Energy Minister and a woman who is known to have covered up child abuse, as the Minister for Education. See the pattern? As Charlie Brown would say, ‘Good grief.’ 

Meanwhile, Putin is threatening nuclear war, Netanyahu continues to decimate Palestine and its population and at Cop 29, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber representatives from the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change. We shouldn’t be surprised. Money speaks louder and more persistently than people standing up to their necks in flood water. It always has. 

Back in the UK, Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, is pointing out the damage Brexit is doing to our economy. The remedy is simple: we need to rejoin the Single Market and the Customs Union and bingo! our economy and a load of struggling business will recover. But this is exactly what our PM, Keir Starmer, will not do. My most optimist friend confesses he’s lost his optimism. ‘At the next UK election,’ he predicts, ‘after five years of nothing much happening, we’ll have a Tory-Reform coalition.’ NO! I want to shout but, daily, I see this prediction growing legs. At a health check-up I’m told my blood pressure is too high and my response is, ‘Quelle surprise!’

But life in Eastbourne offers many distractions and, as Clive James says in his wonderful poem, The Crying Need for Snow, we look for ‘a finer field’ to ‘take our footprints in’ and ‘bring back a soft regime to bitter ground’. On Sunday, I’m awestruck by the performance of violinist, Blake Pouliot, who not only plays with highly spirited virtuosity but moves his body and stamps his feet in a joyful musician-violin pas de deux. I see another spirited performance by Arieh Worlthalter in the role of Pierre Goldman in the French recreation of the real-life court drama, The Goldman Case. The film quivers with energy from start to finish. 

We have a lecture on the street art of East London, which is great fun and another on George Orwell which is very bad for my blood pressure. The lecturer tells us nothing we don’t already know – why give a synopsis of Orwell’s two most famous novels, which everyone present has read? – and then uses the dubious devise of projecting Orwell’s politics into the 21st Century to air his own rather unsavoury views. Outrageous. 

Adrian organises a study day, entitled Ghastly Good Taste (taken from a Betjeman poem) which gives us a romp through some of the quirky, revolutionary and often unfathomable domestic interior designs of the late 19th and 20th centuries. The organisation of the day has sometimes kept Adrian from his sleep, so it’s a relief that all goes as planned and even more of a relief that it’s over.

Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, Jane Green, gives us a Tour of the Universe during which we marvel at satellite photographs of things in space: dust clouds, newborn suns and planets, that look like they’re AI generated but aren’t. We lose track of how big ‘big’ is and I begin to wonder what a god of the universe would consist of. I’m thinking about this because a few weeks ago, Adrian and I were invited to attend a church gathering where the former Chief Constable of Northern Ireland the Chaplain of Liverpool football club both bear witness to the existence of god in their lives. 

As I watch those images of the cosmos, this is what I’m thinking: The Christian god is a very human god whose manifestation on earth is a human male; a man that crucially is crucified and rises from the dead, the primary tenet of Christianity. But god, we’re told, is also omnipotent and omnipresent, so must surely be god of all the trillions of galaxies, solar systems and planets that exist in the vastness of space. Jane Green posits that, statistically, some of these planets will have life, but what sort of life? Not as we know it. So how does god manifest on planets where life is decidedly un-human? I can only conclude that if a god being does exist, then it exists in a form that is beyond our human imagining and certainly beyond the testaments of our Christian witnesses.

Every warm, sunny day feels like a bonus. Autumn is relentlessly closing in on us with its shorter days, lower temperatures, wind and cloud. But, just lately, the weather’s been kind. Our niece, Lizzie, and her husband, Ben, drive from Reading to spend the weekend with us and Saturday gives us the perfect day for a walk on the Downs, over the Seven Sisters and then inland to East Dean.

And then, just as the sun gives up, we head to Lisbon, where the gods don’t seem to have heard of the approaching winter. Warm blue-sky days are ours for the duration. Our flat, in the older part of Lisbon, is perfect for people watching. Each morning we witness a stream of Tuk Tuks (or their Portuguese electric equivalent) beneath our balcony window for what we soon realise is one of the main photo opportunities of the city. Across the square, is the Panteão National which houses, among other heroes, the tomb of Amália Rodriguez, the country’s most famous Fado performer (Fado being a very emotional and local form of folk singing), and the 16th century explorer, Vasco da Gama, about whom I randomly remember learning in my history lessons in Australia.

The Panteão is a 17th century reinvention of the original church, but for over a hundred years now, it has been the final resting place of Portugal’s heroic dead . . . or not. Vasco da Gama’s actual remains are in the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos in Belem, but such is his role in history that he is honoured here with a tomb. This vast building has three beautifully decorated domes and a dome-high balcony which is seriously vertiginous. From the roof, we look across at our very own flat with the cafe below. This cafe is very popular with the young attractive people of the city, but this doesn’t deter one of the local residents from making a permanent display of her washing a few feet from where al fresco diners sit over plates of eggs, avocados, green leaves and tomatoes. Why not? After all, she was here before the cafe.

Lisbon is a charming city with much of its historic past still in tact and refreshingly untrendified. On every cobbled street there is a local shop, several cafes, restaurants and bars, all built into the ground floors of ordinary houses. Hosts of people sit at pavement tables, while wonderfully fresh food appears out of something the size of a garden shed. There is little evidence of International chain stores or cafes. In fact the only chain I’ve noticed is the ubiquitous Pina Colada stand that sits at the entrance of every tourist attraction.

We walk a lot and sleep late. Despite the constant flow of tourists by day, in the evening and at night, the square is as peaceful as the countryside. A short walk downhill – everywhere is either up or down and mostly both – we find a street of eateries and fado bars where the scene is very different. Every spare inch of paving is covered in people enjoying their food at sometimes precariously sloping tables. We wander up to the Miradouro da Graca to drink wine and watch the sunset turning the city and estuary amber. 

Mostly the tourist ‘must dos’ have queues a half mile long, but not the Gulbenkian museum and art gallery where we happily spend over five hours. Calouste Gulbenkian obviously had a bit of dosh to spare: he seems to have collected half of Europe, the middle and far east. Among his bits and bobs, are Rembrandts, Turners, Sargents, Monets, a whole room full of Lalique crystal, acres of ornate French Baroque furniture and rooms full stunning antiquities from the earliest civilisations. How did he get hold of these things? There is also a modern art gallery which has some fascinating exhibits as well as those that leave us flummoxed. It was ever thus, and I still maintain that, if a piece of art needs a treatise to explain it, then the artist has missed something. 

Our day in Sintra has us puzzling out the train system and doing a great deal of walking uphill. By the time we reach the Moorish Castello, we’re hot, sweaty and ready to sit down, but the Castello itself demands further physical effort. We enjoy the lack of health and safety warnings and the freedom to wander along the narrow passageways with little to stop one plummeting over the edge. And the views . . ! 

It is now a stunning ruin and, of course, was built for defence, but I like to imagine the first occupants sitting with their coffee, looking out over the plain towards the Tagus river and feeling very satisfied with their house purchase. Once we’ve climbed up and down and all over the ruins, the white rolls with sparse fillings – the only thing on offer in this high altitude location accessible only on foot – taste absolutely wonderful.

While here, I’ve started to fill up the blank which was my knowledge of Portuguese history. Yes, I knew the Portuguese were early explorers, I knew they were colonialists and everyone knows them for their Port wine, but I knew nothing about the Anglo-Portuguese pact of the 14th century which endures to this day, or the country’s role in keeping Spain out of the second world war. Nor did I know that the Potuguese supplied so many visas (not always officially) to Jewish and other refugees during the Nazi occupation of northern and eastern Europe. Sadly, we’re heading home tomorrow and I feel I’m only now beginning to place Portugal in its proper place in my picture of the world. 

“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to write another blog”. Or at least it would have done if Carroll’s beast had lived in the 21st century. For what is life, now, if it isn’t photographed, written about and posted somewhere on social media? I post, therefore I am. Sad, but true. 

Talking of emotions, this week Adrian and I attend another session of the Bavard Bar in Eastbourne’s wonderful Towner. The first speaker appears to be doing a pretty weak sort of stand-up comedy act as he talks about the little grey men who visit us in their space ships and periodically abduct humans for experimental surgery on their reproductive systems. But it’s only when we realise that he is completely serious that his talk becomes actually funny. 

He gives us ‘evidence’, he sites ‘experts’, he has an answer for every sceptic’s question. Why do these aliens always have the shape of humans? Because – dehrrr – if they are going to fly a spaceship they will need a brain, two eyes, two arms and two legs. Why is it that only a few people ever see them? Hundreds of people see them; they even have the same photograph of the same space ship, so it must be real. Proof, if ever you wanted it. Finally someone asks: Given the infinite number of planets in all the galaxies, why do they bother with us? The answer comes quickly. Because they want to save us from ourselves. They are, apparently, eco-warriors. Well, of course they are.

But its the second speaker who really has us ranting. She is a happiness guru. Happiness, she claims, is the natural state of humans: babies are all born happy, they just learn not to be happy as they grow up. What!? In the break, we join a couple of friends and compete with each other in the miserable baby stakes. Babies cry. A lot. It’s their only means of getting attention until they gradually learn that smiling and gurgling also works pretty well . . . But never quite so well as the ear-splitting yowl. 

The imperative to be happy is surely a Western obsession. We want happiness like we want eternal youthfulness or fame or the perfect relationship. It’s not possible, so we’re always falling short. My solution is to stop trying to be happy. It just makes you feel like a miserable failure. 

And, anyway, I’m not sure it’s even psychologically healthy. I grew up with a father who seemed eternally happy, always joking, never letting anything get him down. But this was because he didn’t engage, couldn’t empathise, had no idea when he was irritating the hell out of you. Our family life was rubbish; he just didn’t notice. So, perhaps that’s how people maintain a blissful state of happiness. By blocking out all the ghastliness of the world. And maybe that’s the secret: either completely withdraw from the realities of life, or have yourself an empathy bi-pass.

This week Adrian’s cousin, Celia, and husband, Bill come to walk the Downs and have lunch with us. We spend a pleasant day together and the hours fly by. We also visit the Knepp Estate having seen the film of their wilding project. We haven’t swallowed the story hook and line, but there’s a little bit of me that wants to grab hold of the sinker. I’ve seen how animals are raised on traditional farms and I find it depressing in the extreme. And, in 25 years, the Knepp project has achieved a great deal. 

Apart from the animals they’ve introduced, myriad wild creatures have made it their home. We walk past pigs happily snuffling in the grass, a graphic illustration of how much the soil has recovered. The first pigs to arrive at Knepp made a beeline for the verges along the drive. This was the only place in the 3,500 acre farm where the soil still had life in it.

With rain forecast for the next week, we take advantage of a warm blue-sky day to walk our favourite route from East Dean to Birling Gap. It’s impossible to tire of the wide open Downs with their chalk cliffs lapped by the sea, or the cafe sitting precariously on its edge with its combination of coffee and books. Is this happiness? I wonder as I climb to the top of the sisters. No, this is a far more complicated state. It’s the feeling of belonging to the land and the sea. It’s the sunshine, the breeze, the big dipper of the hills. It’s the awareness of having legs and lungs. It’s the antidote to bad governments, computers, and boring admin. It’s the release of the cramp that stifles the brain. It’s the temporary sense of escape from oneself. 

It’s the first of September and summer is still in the glory of its late bloom. Every day of swimming, from now on, feels like a bonus. Yes, I know there are those who swim in the sea all year round, but I’m not one of them. Not in the UK winter when toes and fingers are likely to be numb while I’m running let alone plunging into water hovering around six or seven degrees. That’s just asking for trouble. Or, at least, hands and feet that look like they belong to a cadaver with no blood left in them. 

A and I have discovered the tiny cinema at the Towner Gallery. It’s a gem. Not only is it home to the quirky Bavard Bar – mini TED lectures with bizarre comedic games – but it also screens a number of inspirational small budget, foreign-language films. With our television languishing in the attic, we devour these treats with a newly discovered appetite. 

The next writing competition, set by Hastings writers group, is a piece of Sci-Fi flash fiction, quite the biggest challenge I’ve faced so far. There are two main issues: firstly, my aversion to Science Fiction – I find science reality worrying enough – and second, my inability to write short form. Hey ho. I’m sure the exercise will be good for me. 

Interestingly, I ran through a proposed scenario over a coffee with Adrian just yesterday. I finished the short sketch in which the 2056 iteration of a computer programme is being kiboshed by the remnants of its original coding (created back in the dim dark past of 2016), resulting in the world being brought to a catastrophic halt. His response was: ‘But that isn’t science fiction; that could easily happen.’ Therein lies my problem.

On that subject, I’ve just read this article about the language of coding and found it fascinating. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/31/learning-computer-programming-language-coding-devil-stack-andrew-smith

I’ve never previously given a thought to the differences in coding languages or the people who invent them. Nor that the languages come with their own aesthetics and prejudices. I have, of course, heard it claimed that coding is inherently racist and sexist – few coders identify as women or black, for example. But Andrew Smith also suggests that a coding language can be a window onto the wider political orientation of its author. Having had a negative emotional reaction to a particular coding language, he wasn’t at all surprised to discover that the author’s ideology was abhorrent to him. 

Coding is ‘concentrating power,’ he says, ‘abrading society and casting an algorithmic spell over us as a species.’ Any political campaigner who uses social media will testify to the poisonous bogs into which that can lead. The recent riots and rise of populism are just two manifest examples. But even at a more mundane level, I find that the more digital we become, the more alienated I feel. 

We all have to engage with coding in order to simply live our lives. I get that. But it’s interesting to have it suggested that my alienation has a rational basis. That I don’t just feel I’m being pushed into places I don’t want to be . . . I actually am.

Just a the point where I’m sure that McBeth hath indeed murdered sleep, a calm descends. The quiet days do their stuff and my periods of awakeness reduce. I sleep for five, then six hours, then longer. After about ten days of this, I’m no longer in a panic; calm begets calm and I begin to feel like me again. During my insomnia, I talk to friends: Simon, in Devon and Sue in Brisbane. Both have been where I am and offer help and support. They have some good advice, but their very desire to help gives me such a feeling of – what? Relief? Hope? Gratitude? – that I want to cry like a child who, having been lost, has found its mother. It feels like I’ve been held on the brink of falling. At this distance that seems like an extreme reaction, but it’s how it was.

Meanwhile, Adrian is cycling the South Downs Way, from Winchester back to Eastbourne. He arrives home late on Friday evening, too elated to know how tired he is. That comes over the weekend, when during a relatively short walk on the Downs, he questions how the feeble legs he’s currently walking on could possibly have pushed him up all those hills and kept him cycling for nine hours a day.

His cousin, Celia, and husband, Bill, live rather conveniently in Chichester and offer him hospitality both there and back. After a challenging day of cycling in the rain, nothing could be better – a warm, house, a hot shower, a meal and a comfortable bed. He spends two genial nights with them and is thoroughly looked after. 

Back home, we have a spattering of meetings and the odd social engagement. We meet Marianna and Ray for an early supper and enjoy an outdoor performance of the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’, an amateur production that begins rather slowly but gradually elicits the sort of belly laughs from the audience that one would expect. There’s an Art Society lunch, the launch of my writers group Anthology. In a very parred down way, life is returning to normal.

But I don’t take this new phase for granted. I’ve learned my lesson. And in case I forget it, I have Adrian here to remind me. He didn’t enjoy my trip into the darkness any more than I did and he has my back. And good has come from bad. I’ve found a new level of friendship and a new way of appreciating simplicity. Life is gradually returning to normal, but not necessarily as we know it, Jim. 

I’ve developed a chronic sleeping problem. I hesitate to call it insomnia, because that’s something I don’t want to be stuck with. We all have occasional sleep issues, but this has been going on for weeks, no months: four or five hours sleep a night, sometimes as little as three. It just isn’t enough and I know I’m not functioning normally. Far from it. June has swept by in a haze; July is disappearing into a fog. There have been numerous family events including our niece’s wedding, a birthday party, trips away, visits to friends, family staying and through none of it have I been properly present. I’m there, but not as we know it, Jim.

Take, for example, the trip to West Dean conducted by Adrian in his new role as Visits Secretary. The estate and the story behind it are fascinating – or so everyone kept saying. Edward James was a friend and champion of the early 20th century Surrealists, including Dali, Magritte, Carrington, and he had the wealth to indulge his interest. His own house is full of Dali’s and Magritte’s work; he funded Carrington’s first ever exhibition and then founded an art school in Mexico. Meanwhile he turned his own estate into a school of arts and crafts and the ‘Dower House’ into a monument to surrealism. Fascinating. And yet, I walked through the day in a state of yawning indifference. I just wasn’t there.

The cognitive impairment typical of the sleep deprived is well documented. What I never read about in my Psychology textbooks was the sort of manic hyper-vigilance that flares up in its wake: the compensatory mechanism that tries to deal with the non-functionality. It’s like having several neural connections twisted and tangled together and then fired simultaneously and continuously. The only outcome is panic as the brain tries to untangle and act at the same time. What’s more, the fact that everyone else isn’t panicking, makes me want to scream. I mean, the vegetables are cooked and the fish isn’t on the plates. Why hasn’t this stimulated an act of mass hysteria? But it’s just me who feels hysterical. Me, who has had a lifetime of hosting social events, a constant round of visits and visitors. Am I going mad? No. I’m just chronically short of sleep. I know that. But what do I do?

Worse than the hyper-vigilance is the black despair of the early hours, lying awake after trying every thought-blocking and relaxation technique in existence. At that stage, I know with a certainty that I’m worthless, friendless, without foundation or hope. I’m nothing; a pathetic excuse for a living being that, like Sisyphus, must keep trying and failing. I want to get up and walk through the night to the seafront. I want to stare across the water to my doom. But I don’t. Because, underneath the black thundering cloud (and it does thunder inside my head), I know that this is chemistry and biology; it’s playing havoc with my brain cells. It’s not really me.

So, what to do? The only solution is sleep. And I know from my experience of babies that that means calm and reduced stimulation. So, I embark on a temporary self-imposed minimalist lifestyle. ‘What are your plans for the day?’ asks Adrian. He’s full of purpose, excited about his day’s arduous cycle over the Downs. ‘I don’t have any,’ I reply, but not because I feel too despondent to make any. Because I don’t want to plan to do something and then fail to do it. It’s not what I need. 

Adrian and I have talked about this. He suggests that I ‘let myself off’, take a step back, recreate the pared down days of lockdown. I could work this out myself, but it’s important to have his support. So that’s what I’m doing. Lockdown without the illness. And I’m happy for Adrian to do his own thing, take himself off for long cycle rides. He’d stay if I asked him to, but I’d rather be what I am, on my own, and not have to worry about the effect it’s having on him. I’m hopeful. This surreal life will pass.

Time is speeding up. I know you’ll say this is just a perception thing. We’re busier. We have a new house and garden to sort out, we’re involved with an increasing number of groups, etc. But it isn’t perception. Time doesn’t ‘seem’ to be speeding up; it actually is. I’m convinced of it. And, if there isn’t a law about this, then there should be. And it would state something like Time (which is a constant) multiplied by Activity level (1-10) equals the speed of time.

But what about energy, you ask? When you are a child with infinite amounts of energy, time passes slowly, no matter how much activity your school tries to involve you in. The law of ‘Time Speed’ then, needs to account for this phenomenon. It could be described by an equation i.e. Time (the constant) multiplied by Activity level (1-10) divided by Energy level (say 10 minus the energy you no longer have) equals Time Speed. 

T X A ÷ E = TS

I think I’ll patent this and, who knows, there could be a Nobel prize in it.

So, what activities, you ask politely, has been speeding up my time? Well, (thank you for asking) there have been lectures, poetry workshops, play reading, concerts, the Brighton Festival and other bits of socialising. There has, also sadly, been a journey to Cornwall to say goodbye to and celebrate the life of our very dear friend and ex-neighbour in Falmouth, Sally-Ann. Her death came painfully quickly, just a couple of months after being diagnosed with cancer. She was too young, too vibrant, too sunny and warm to be taken away from us, and the words spoken by many of her friends and family testify to this shared feeling. We grieve for ourselves but also for Dave, who describes her first, as his soul mate and second, as his wife. This relationship has always been understood by everyone who knows them.

I’m not going to rattle through everything we’ve been doing (sigh of relief) but there are some highlights that I’d like to share. Reading Racine’s play, Phèdre, is an interesting (and enjoyable) experience for me on two different levels. Firstly, those of you who studied Classics will know that the play is based on Euripides’ Hippolytus. I didn’t, so taking part in Phèdre is a steep learning curve. Second, the extreme melodrama, at times, makes me want to laugh. Happily, I stop myself. Laughing while Hippolytus is being burnt alive by a fire-exhaling sea serpent isn’t entirely appropriate. 

Contrastingly, it is absolutely appropriate to laugh out loud at the French mimed play we watch at the Brighton Festival. Fishbowl is set in three cut-away tiny attic bedsits with three excellent mime-actors and a brilliant use of sound effects and lighting. It had all the right elements a la Charlie Chaplin and Jacque Tati: slap stick, pathos and precisely choreographed movement. I literally fell about, I was laughing so hard. 

Then there is a concert by the London Philharmonic, most memorable for the Sebelius symphony in the second half. I love Peer Gynt and Mozart’s clarinet concerto, but it’s exciting to hear a symphony I don’t know. While in Falmouth and talking to a friend who is a professional violinist, I discover something fascinating and rather funny about this. 

‘When playing Sebelius,’ Greg tells me, ‘the advice is to only play about every fourth note, as it’s impossible to play all of them. And, anyway, no-one notices.’ Huh!

We hold our first drinks party here and, as it’s a lovely warm day and everyone wants to be outside, we have the perfect physical confirmation (if we needed it) that we need a larger terrace. I’m just thankful that no-one fell off the edge. On our way to Cornwall we spend a night with friend, Henry, in Warminster and, for the first time in my life, I’m challenged by another person walking up a hill. Henry’s fiancee, who we’re delighted to meet, is the fastest person up a slope I’ve ever walked with. I’m still recovering from my knee injury but even so, I’m still a little surprised to find my speech isn’t entirely normal when we reach the top. We’re already looking forward to doing the Seven Sisters together . . . and probably in record time.

Talking of firsts, Adrian and I find ourselves FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER living in a constituency where our vote will actually count. The Liberal Democrats are neck and neck with the Tories here, so . . . In just under a month, the UK will have a change of government and guess what? The prospect of a Labour party in power is exciting the City into predicting an increase in the value of the pound! We’ve always known that the well-worn tale, ‘Labour-governments-depress-the-economy’ is rubbish, but it’s lovely to have such a blatant confirmation of this view. Watch the house of cards as it melts; this time the Tory Icarus has flown too close to the fires of hell. 

For Sally-Ann: Extract from Dirge without Music by Edna St Vincent Millay

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone.  They are gone to feed the roses.  Elegant and curled

Is the blossom.  Fragrant is the blossom.  I know.  But I do not approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Tom, the tree man, has performed his miracle, carving us a garden out of the wilderness. Not only have we gained space and light, but also the motivation to continue the project. We weed, we prune and we fill up our Townies garden-waste bin within a couple of hours. 

‘I need a trailer for the tip,’ says Adrian and, just like that, he buys one. Already, it’s been filled twice over, even though just a week earlier, Tom had already removed several tons of foliage. Tom’s an interesting man: he has eight children, all of them home-schooled, and looks no more than thirty five. His assistant for the week is his twelve year old nephew, who comes from a similarly large family, and works harder than any adult. 

Meanwhile, quotations for our new terrace roll in, and with such a discrepancy in their bottom lines that all they do is confuse us. Likewise with our conservatory blinds: when one price is exactly twice that of another, it’s difficult to make sense of the figures. All we can do is ask for a third, and hope it sheds light (or shade) on the others. 

But, thankfully, there’s more to our lives than house projects. We both take part in this month’s play reading of ‘A Raisin in the Sun’, a play about a struggling black family in 1950s Chicago. It’s a deeply moving and witty script by Lorraine Hansberry and some of you may remember the original film version with Sydney Poitier. It’s been revived many times since 1959, including a 2008 TV movie. There’s a surprisingly uplifting ending, but a couple of us are left thinking that the male characters get off a bit too lightly. By the way, the original movie is available on youtube.

Marianna and Ray invite us to lunch with their typical hospitality and kindness and we enjoy a pleasant few hours discussing books, music and stuff going on in Eastbourne. Then, on Monday evening, our writers’ group holds a workshop with the renowned poet, John McCullough. https://johnmccullough.co.uk (Have a listen to Electric Blue).

His poetry is sharp and visual and he performs with energy and humour. He is to judge our poetry competition and, to put us in the mood, gives us some tips about process and then sets us a rapid-fire writing exercise. It’s exhausting. Some of the results from other members are quite stunning. The rest of us realise that we’re not really poets but will have a go.

In the middle of this kaleidoscope of activity, we have an unexpected day out in Rochester, visiting the castle and cathedral; unexpected because one doesn’t immediately associated the town with buying an induction hob. But I’ve found one for sale on eBay and off we go.

It isn’t an ideal day for hanging about in ruins – cold and damp – but it’s fun to explore yet another place that neither of us know and one that has more history than most. It also has an interestingly quirky town centre with buildings that inspired Dickens’ Great Expectations. And then, of course, there’s the annual Steampunk Festival with its unique demonstration of Tea Duelling. Who’d have thought.

Late in the week, Adrian has a call from the hospital. There’s been a cancellation and the minor operation he’s been waiting for will go ahead in three days time. This sparks a frenzy of activity: he’ll be out of action for at least six weeks and there are several heavy jobs still to be ticked off the list. Like planting a ten foot tree. He also makes the most of his new bicycle Switch kit and, slightly overestimating its power, takes off for an exhausting day’s hill cycling. Now in his convalescent phase, his tasks are confined to tapping at a keyboard but there’s plenty of that to be done as well – sourcing blinds, curtain poles, listing the unwanteds on Gumtree . . . Needless to say, he’d rather be cutting a hedge or exhausting himself on the Downs.