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Happy Sunday

¦ dialling in from Hayling Island ¦

10:38 GMT, Sunday 17th Jan 2010.  

It’s only a day since my last entry but feels much longer.

Languid, blissful time here.

Yesterday: Drove to a pub called The Raft, 4 miles along the shore.

Finished Chapter 19 (already finished Ch 20) and now working on reviewing my plan for the rest of the book, as the story is about to go through big change, and the characters thrust in a new direction.  The plan I’m currently working to was created back in 2006 / 2007, during two trips I took to South of France (Montpellier/ Perols/ Aigues Mortes). Like any plan, once you engage you discover the need to change things: so this is a good point to pause writing, pause pushing forward, and taking time to check the road map is still relevant.

Late yesterday afternoon I took a walk on beach in rain with Pete. Went much further than he’s ever been before: this island is where Pete grew up since a small child.  As we walked the rain stopped and was replaced by a magical light: there was not another soul in sight.  The atmosphere became ethereal.  Pressing on we discovered a wonderful part of the island, very hard to describe, but involved distant coastline half lost in mist, dark smudges and blocky outlines… closer to hand were vast stretches of wet sand and the odd sandbank poking out of shallow waters.  A lot of space.  A lot of distance.

Pete returned by a different route. I walked back on my own with headphones in, racing the setting sun to get off the beach before dark… incoming tide… stop, turn and look behind me, and then ahead of me, not another soul in sight. Fantastic.

Last night saw the traditional game of Fury of Dracula.

I relished the idea of bed, and being able to go to sleep with window open; which I did, and was serenaded by rolling waves on the shore.

Woke up 7 a.m. today, mug of tea, then dressed and out, walking the same lengthy route in the early sunrise. Golden light.  Fire burning in a blue sky, reflecting off gently lapping water.

I texted all the friends I have in my phone book to wish them a happy Sunday… a lovely, divine and genuinely happy moment.

This has been very special trip.

Sountrack to these memories, and to this stage of Dog Eat Dog is “Scars and Souveniers”, by Theory of a Dead Man

I left mid afternoon.  Pete was flying up to Newcastle later that night.

My drive back, nosing Rocket into sweeping corners, hugging tight bends and blasting along empty straights of the A36, a brilliant rural road cutting across SW England. I had the hood down for most of the way; I was wearing my snow jacket with a snood tight against my neck, and a Russian tank hat with thick fur trim… the “ears” flapping up and down with the rush of air, probably making me look like some kind of demented dog with a human face.

Having spent a lot of the past two weeks reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and especially today with such brilliant sunlight flooding the landscape… I felt as though I was chasing the sunset like the heroes at the end of the story.

Getting home I discovered my right hand was almost frozen into place around the steering wheel: I lost all sensation in it for half an hour.  Whoops.  But I spent most of the drive with a massive grin carving my face, what was visible within the thick fur of the hat and my big golden sunglasses.

Blissful moments in time.