Finally the wind has dropped, and the sun shines – I can work comfortably in the new garden once again. The kitchen is nearly finished. I am doing studio work too.
We keep busy – and listen to the radio less and less, when we do, what we hear makes us angry.
Tonight is the Beltane Full Moon, and I’d like to get up to see it.
Friday May 8th I wake early, but miss the Full Moon as it is so cloudy.
I’m restless. I’m enjoying the exchanges between Sara and myself, we’ve made some interesting work since we began three weeks ago, but there are days when I just don’t ‘tick’, and other days when everything flows, and sometimes I wonder if there’s a happy medium, a nice regular pace of working. Surely not everyone is like me; stop-start-stop…!
I think about my latest painting, which is a bit of a mystery to me at the moment. I’m thinking about the pottery shards found whilst digging, and how they’ve become part of my process. They’re just bits of broken crockery to most people, but to me they have eloquence and a sense of mystery. They’re ‘old-fashioned’, antique, they have a history only to be guessed at. Each piece has a story.
If we carry on the way we are in the world our own stories will shrivel, become diminished, worthless, all too common and nondescript. Digital technology eats everything up, anything, and spits it out as pixels. Dots of light, with not even a 2-dimensional presence, ON/OFF, ON/OFF. That’s all we’ll be, in the end.
You could argue it was always thus, official records of lives, kept on paper, reduced individuals to numbers. But when we look at the piece of paper, it says (as Roland Barthes said of the photograph) I was, and my life was witnessed by another, and my death and my way of passing. Do we really want to reduce life on earth to a digital archive that will eventually fail to be regularly updated, so that in the end it lies in a (virtual) corner, unrecognised, unwanted, and useless because we don’t have the hardware to retrieve it?
One week later – The kitchen is finished, and the work that we’ve done in the garden is beginning to pay off. We’re entertained by the birds that come to forage, and the rabbit, who lives somewhere among the trees and sits on the grass verge at night opposite our kitchen window, munching grass and dandelion. Ivy the turkey wanders along there too. She’s lonely, we think. The two males have ‘pal’-d up, and she’s left to her own resources. Some days we see more animals than people. We keep busy and try to ignore the impact of the lockdown, but when will we get back to spending time with others? How soon? How long? How?
Thursday 14 May – They’re collecting the grass on the two fields tonight. It’s a perfect evening, and they’re quick and efficient, and use a combine harvester in tandem with a tractor and trailer. There’s a team, of five or six tractor/trailers: it takes less than two hours to clear two large fields. It’s a well-rehearsed, smoothly-choreographed operation.
Friday 15th – A trip to a garden centre, since they are allowed to open once more. It was fairly well-managed, but we feel uneasy among numbers of people, some of whom don’t seem to have heard of social distancing.
We spent most of the weekend on the garden – the sun and exercise are doing us good, but there is a tightening of the thread of frustration and anxiety that runs through our lives because we are deprived of all the social comforts we took for granted, being with our children and grandchildren, friends and wider family. The anxiety comes more from the government’s haste to move on, despite its protestations. Mixed messages, ambiguous communications, repetition of meaningless mantras…
Yesterday Michael Gove had the temerity to tell teachers that they were being unprofessional, failing in their ‘duty’, in not wanting to get primary school kids back to school. I applaud every parent and teacher who defies him.
I’m taking less notice of the news reports these days. Are we becoming ‘indifferent’ to the crisis? We are certainly alienated from the very worst consequences, living where we do. But I have noticed the Government’s back-tracking on their position regarding care homes. They maintain now that this sector was always at the heart of their concerns, but we know it wasn’t even at the periphery when they were congratulating themselves on providing a ‘new hospital’ in 10 days. Most of us wondered if they could do it then, why not before? And what about the higher incidence of deaths among members of the BAME communities? Or the shortage, still, of suitable PPE for frontline staff, the majority of whom are female (the health and social care sectors have always comprised mostly female workers) and are being given masks that don’t fit because they have been modelled on a male physiognomy? So many questions, so much time to prepare answers.
Meanwhile I have continued with the new garden, excavating a few more or less interesting finds from what appears to be a more recent dumping area. And I’ve started an exchange project with an artist friend in Devon. We’re going to make and respond to a daily work each during this lockdown.
Friday 17th – Sorted my garden ‘finds’ into groups and photographed them. Not sure why at the moment. Sara sent a first image, which I made a response to. Boiler still not working, and the weather has turned cold. Sunday 19th – Enjoyed working in the studio yesterday, and the boiler is fixed, we now have heat! Today the weather is better and I work in the garden over the road, trying to fight thousands of weed seedlings that have germinated since I cleared all the brambles away! They’re not weeds, of course, they’re all wild plants, Hogweed, Nettle, Convolvulus, wild Mustard, Cow Parsley…I leave a large area to them, and try to maintain a small clear area for vegetables and flowers. There’s a large pile of granite
still to be moved – somewhere!
Made some more interesting finds, more recent, the most interesting being a badge, and a brass piano pedal. Maybe the whole piano is there, beneath our feet! Oh, and the 1992 10p coin which shows ER wearing a covid mask!
Tuesday 21st – I’ve been feeling gloomy lately, and physically off par. My eyes are still sore, and I have a stiff neck, not sleeping well, and generally feeling depressed. Working in the garden seems very hard today, but I’ve planted potatoes and beans. Sent a photo of collected finds to Sara as my contribution to the daily exchange.
We have a nice new door now – so many doors! Wednesday 22nd April – A really strong feeling of needing to escape this week. Needing to be alone. I went to Priest Cove for the afternoon: a couple of women were swimming, and people were walking there, in family groups. Everyone looks at everyone else very guardedly.
It is a New Moon this week, is that the reason for my low spirits? Or is it a symptom of the ‘Lockdown’ situation?
Thursday 23rd – I went to Ken’s today, to take part in a performance painting with another artist. Ken’s idea, and a good one, although we were flouting the guidelines. We kept sensible distances, and wore masks and aprons, and for a blissful couple of hours forgot all about the current situation as we concentrated on making a painting 4 metres square. Filmed the process. Looking at the footage afterwards I was surprised how serious we were, and how focused!
On the Friday we both went to the Cape and spent a while on the beach. The rough seas have thrown up a mound of Kelp, far higher on the beach than I’d ever seen it, and I wondered if the sea would drag it back again before summer.
The exchange project is very rewarding; it keeps me thinking and helps me put in studio-time that I may otherwise have used for something less important. My timetabling is better, and I’ve kept notes in my journal. I’ve finished the jobs that were hanging over me, and found fair weather days to work on the garden. The gloom has lifted.
The children all seem to be managing; comparing notes, we find the same things, restlessness, aimlessness, a strangeness about the everyday which is palpable. Most of them are able to work from home, and the grandchildren are back to home-schooling after the ‘Easter break’. We miss them all so much. All bank holidays seem meaningless now; artificial concepts that don’t mark any difference in the days that pass. We all seek structure, and goals, however small.
Easing Lockdown, when? and how? have become the focus of media questions now. It must be wearing to have to repeat, at the evening Press briefings, the same criteria, in the same fine detail. Occasionally there’s a good question, an important, pertinent, and new question, but most of the time it’s repetitive and pointless.
Press video coup of the month goes to the person who recorded the agonising discomfiture of the USA health official (female) who was implicated in Trump’s public pronouncement about the use of disinfectant (taken orally) to ‘beat the virus’.
Here the number of deaths reported this past week have been high, as predicted once the care homes were taken into account. Our death rate is among the highest in Europe at over 30,000.
So many questions will be asked.
Friday May 1st – May already! Before shopping I walked round Penzance. Sad to see the town deserted, all the Closed signs.
Saturday May 2nd – my Vertigo is back – unpleasant but manageable. I’ve decided to paint the kitchen now, while the weather is poor, and spend a horrible couple of days cleaning and scraping at the stone walls. When the sun comes out I escape to the new garden for fresh air! The potatoes and onions are coming along nicely, and Pete has made a compost area, so we can compost our food waste now.
Monday 4th – First coat of paint on, it’ll take a couple more before it looks good.
Wednesday 6th – yesterday was our anniversary. Pete bought tulips from the Co-Op, and cakes. Cheaper than a restaurant meal and fizzy, but just as good, and I wondered, not for the first time, whether a lot of people will find that they can live more ‘frugally’ than before, and get just as much pleasure from it? What do people most miss? For me it’s seeing our family and our friends again, a really good cup of coffee by the sea, and the feeling of being relatively safe and comfortable in the world. And I’m aware how very fortunate I’ve been to have experienced all those things.
Pete is working on the door – it has been a really difficult job, and he finally had to resort to using an angle grinder to get what was a thick coating of concrete off the interior wall, to fit the new frame into place.
I’ve had an allergic reaction to the dust, which makes me cough and has affected my eyes so badly that they are swollen and sore. I look as if I’ve been in a fight.
I’m still digging over the same patch of ground; each session brings up more stones. I’m beginning to think perhaps I’m digging up the remains of a yard, or a cobble path; the stones come up in two’s and three’s and they’re mostly about the same size, and shaped similarly.
At some point we’ll sort them all out, I think.
There are plenty of ‘finds’ – among the latest lot a complete glass bottle, possibly for ink?
Outside our small world, media attention has turned to Care homes and carers now: they are rightly protesting that they have been left to get on with things, and that the NHS has been the focus of attention. During the press briefing on Wednesday Matt Hancock attempted to put a patch on the problem, but it is one that will rankle. People are dying, unnecessarily perhaps, and their deaths are not yet included in the daily toll, which relies on hospital records only, ie those deaths that occur in hospital.
At the evening Press Briefings journalists are unbelievably unimaginative, chipping away at the same old questions about testing, and plans for coming out of lockdown. It’s easy to criticise the government for being unprepared, but really, how many of us ever gave a thought to something of this scale affecting us? We have been happy to go on for years blaming successive governments, when we should have been demanding better governance. We’ve been sidetracked by the spurious wonders of capitalism; through mass digital communication we’ve surrendered our independence of thought and imagination, and as an affluent ‘first-world’ country (that phrase is generally avoided these days) we have lived well and cheaply for far too long now. Most of us have no idea what it is to go without, let alone what it must be like to have nowhere to go.
(In the USA, Donald (get out and vote Now!) Trump has had his just reward in Wisconsin, where the Democrats won the election. He complains that he is ‘brutalised by the Press’. Tragic.)
Apparently Roumanians are being flown in to work in our fields and farms! Are they more dispensible than us? Are we British inherently lazy, or unprepared to accept the low wages, even in a crisis? Or is it something systemic that stops people seeking work on the land? My son has not been able to work since 20 March. He has no money at all and is still waiting for his 80% ‘grant’ to be processed. He would go to work locally on a farm to help out, but has had to sign an official agreement to say he won’t work while he is in receipt of benefits. (Catch22)
Thursday 16th – Over 800 have died today. Well over 12,500 known deaths in total, and rising daily.
A survey (of Who? Where?) suggests that the majority of British people are in favour of continuing lockdown. For the remaining minority it’s a nightmare of many forms.
Wednesday 8 April
We received our official letter from no. 10 today – a bit late, we thought.
Our neighbour Linda brought us 6 fresh eggs from her hens, and a special – one of little Ivy’s first eggs. Ivy is a turkey, and has come of age. Her pretty egg is almost white, with delicate freckles of pale brown.
The evening news announced over 900 deaths from Covid19 today, with over 5,000 new cases confirmed. The Chancellor has found £750m to bail out the charity sector, which is struggling badly in this crisis. Journalists still ask the same questions at the evening press conference.
Thursday morning has become ‘shopping day’, as it’s relatively quiet in Penzance. I managed to buy fruit bushes for the new ‘garden’ I’m making across the road (on a piece of waste ground), and a couple of other plants. Not ‘essential supplies’? Possibly not, but they add significantly to my sense of having some control in this crisis.
The behaviour of shoppers is very interesting. We queue quietly and patiently at the 2- metre intervals marked out on the supermarket forecourt: it’s a one-in, one-out strategy.
Once inside, some people stick to ‘the rules’, while others completely disregard them. One couple’s strategy was for her to push the trolley, keeping a sensible distance from absolutely everyone, while her husband played outrider, zooming ahead to scope the offers, apparently oblivious of any need to distance himself from other shoppers. Patience, it seems, is THE big thing that we need to learn. I’m reminded of Cornelia Parker’s little video on Instagram, where she is filming the lower legs and feet of the person in front of her on the pavement. She has to match her pace to his, to maintain the distance, and consequently slows to his pace and his agenda, as he stops to look into a shop window, or pauses to use his phone.
It seems strange to me that shops are still so plentifully supplied, but not so strange that Easter Eggs are today two-for-one.
Driving home, I become aware that I’m aware of keeping a ‘distance’ from the car in front, and from incoming cars. It’s as if my perceptual system has been taken over by another part of my brain – which I call ‘Covid-alert’ for want of the correct behavioural term. I’m in my car, I think, I don’t need to be on alert now – but it’s as if a new auto-response has been switched on.
Good Friday – turns out to be hot, sunny and exhausting! I tried working on the garden, but couldn’t settle. Pete, who is working on the new door, is busy painting.
We heard that our young neighbours, who had taken on the role of local ‘help’, have contracted the virus, and are now self-isolating. There’s nothing we can do for them.
980 people died in the UK today – more people than on any single day in Italy or Spain. But what use is it to keep comparing ourselves to other countries? Each country has reacted slightly differently, and has an entirely different set of social circumstances.
In New York coffins are being lined up to be interred in a mass grave. As many have died there as in any country around the world!
Saturday 11 April Another beautiful day, which would have made for the perfect Easter, under normal circumstances.
My neighbour’s two sons came to move the large (really large!) lumps of granite that lay all along the bottom of the retaining wall in the ‘new garden’. We don’t know yet how to use them, but think that the pond area could make a nice sunken sitting area, using the granite to make seats around the edge.
My younger sister rang to say my oldest sister is in hospital with an infection and a blood clot. She is in Ohio. We feel helpless.
Over 900 deaths again today, and one additional disturbing statistic: 14% of our population are from ethnic minority groups, but 34% pf deaths from C19 are from those groups! The spokesperson, whoever it was, appeared to think this was not a statistic that needed particular attention at the moment, and that it was more important to focus on total deaths daily. (Quantitative data vs qualitative data – the numbers game)
Easter Sunday Pete is making good progress with the new door: today he is chipping off the old plaster and cement to make room for the new frame. It was the only sound to be heard this morning. Even here, where we take the daily quietness for granted, C19 has somehow imposed another layer of quietness on top, and all human activity is muffled. Except, today, for the sound of Pete’s hammer, of course.
This is the first time we’ve had this door open since we moved in!
It isn’t until mid-afternoon that we realise that our neighbour has put out wooden Easter bunnies, fully clothed, and with name tags – ‘Pat’ and ‘Pete’.
In the cooler evening we dug over the patch that had been covered with granite. It will take several goes to make it usable – the large blocks of stone are out of the way, but it’s full of smaller rocks, and plenty of weed and bramble roots.
I’ve lost count of the bags of weed roots I’ve dug out of here over the past 3 weeks
700 more have died today – but that’s lower than the past two days. It’s hard to take in, living at such a remove from the densely populated parts of the UK. Any conversation we have with others always includes the words ‘we are so fortunate, living here’.
Easter Monday After I’d spent half an hour watering the gardens yesterday, it poured down! The wind is blustery and cold today, but it’s still sunny. If I talk about the weather so much it’s because we’ve had such a long, wet, stormy winter here, and this spell of warm weather has been a real blessing. But it has meant that I’ve neglected all other jobs to focus on working outside, in the fresh air. And the past three weeks of digging and weeding have made me fit.
I catch up on desk jobs for most of the day, then go out to dig over that new patch of ground. As I dig, I’m thinking about the lumps of stone I’ve dug out from this fairly small patch of ground. And the metres of Convolvulus root, and nettle root. The knots of bramble, and mooli-like roots of Hogweed. The yards of granite that Luke and Max moved for me. The bags and bags of garden matter that are waiting to be collected, and the young plants that are waiting to go in, to take their chance. And the ‘finds’: little pieces of broken pottery and coloured glass, shards from old crockery, bits of rusted iron, very little plastic at all. Each fragment has its own story.
‘S/He who plants a garden, plants happiness’ says the old proverb (Chinese, I believe). It is indeed a great distraction, at a time when we can’t think about seeing our children, or travelling – when even the thought of sitting above the beach at Sennen with a cup of flat white coffee is just a daydream!
The weather decides what I do, at the moment, and because it’s sunny and warm I spend another day in the new ‘garden’. Pete joins me later, and this afternoon he clears out all the reeds and brambles from the pond, exposing the tattered plastic liner. We’re not sure what to do with the new pile of matted roots and weed, but the pond is empty!
In the early evening, it’s announced that Boris Johnson has been moved into the IC unit at St Thomas Hospital.
Tuesday 7 April
I woke at about 1.30a.m on Tuesday morning. The moon was bright, and the whole world outside looked washed clean. I made tea and stood in the garden watching the stars and listening to the roar of the sea. It’s an undifferentiated sound, at this distance. I wanted to hear the waves receding and advancing. I took a walk, my soft shoes making no sound on the road. Being out when the world is sleeping is a strange secret pleasure. On the hill I could smell the strong musky odour, of a fox, I thought.
I stood for a while at the top of a footpath, looking across to the ocean, listening. And then, a clicking sound on the road behind me – I turned to see a badger, head down, stock-still: frozen by my sudden movement. He stood for a few seconds, then turned and trotted off up the hill, disappearing through a gap in the hedge.
I spent the morning assembling do-it-yourself Easter kits to send to the kids, it took much longer than I expected, and I realise I’m relying on the postal system to deliver as efficiently as ‘usual’. Except these days are not usual.
Tonight (Tuesday night) there is to be a perigean moon, this time a ‘pink moon’ apparently. What a shame that the lovely word ‘perigee’ has been replaced by ‘supermoon’, the word ‘super’ being attached to all kinds of things now, a word completely lacking in invention and so over-used as to be meaningless.
I will try to be out when it’s at its fullest, around 3.30a.m
For years our government has pursued ‘austerity economics’ rather than investing in social security of a fairer and all-encompassing kind; stubbornly following an economic model that has driven our public services into the ground. Greed and arrogance fuelled the financial crash of 2008 (but they still manufactured stories of ‘our’ profligacy and irresponsibility) We were all made to pay, and made to feel guilty, that we may have coveted a house of our own, a holiday, or a new car. Austerity was imposed and all our public services starved of resources. But it was our fault, or the Labour Party’s fault – we were told until we were sick of hearing that ‘under the Labour government, blah blah blah’. When David Cameron, in an act of unbelievable arrogance and stupidity, encouraged the British people to vote on a referendum to leave or stay in the European Union, he was so certain of the outcome that he didn’t put into place any parameters to ensure a truly representative democratic outcome. We were told for the following four years that Brexit was the ‘will of the people’ and must be respected. Deals that had been ‘dodgy’ under Theresa May were suddenly passed without scrutiny for Boris Johnson. And the first few weeks of his government revealed that here was a regime that was going to sweep away any last remnants of democracy as we thought we knew it.
But there has been a threat from another quarter, as we learn that the Corona Virus outbreak in China is out of control, and has crossed borders and frontiers, causing havoc in Italy, and now panic in France, Germany and Britain, as governments try to work out how to handle this pandemic. Our Government decides to follow the ‘behavioural modelling’ experts, and seems slow to respond.
It has been over a year since I last wrote my blog: life overtook us and things have changed and all manner of things have changed. But now seems a good time to begin again, with the new Heading*. I apologise for the length of this first post, a lot has been happening, quietly.
Monday 16th March.
A lovely sunny, dry, wind-less day! At last! Winter has been long, cold, wet and very windy here in the very West of Cornwall.I have been cutting down bramble bushes all day, on the waste ground opposite our house. The owner has said we can ‘use it’, but every year we have been busy with our own garden and house, and haven’t found the time or energy. This year is different- I’ve been incarcerated for so long this winter that I can’t wait to tackle a fresh-air project. I need the exercise! I finished about 4.30, aching for a hot bath, but thought I’d prepare supper first. As I turned on the radio there was an announcement that Boris Johnson was about to begin his first Covid19 press conference. Setting out the situation, he adopted a solemn tone reminiscent of wartime public addresses. The virus is accelerating. We are to minimise travel and social gatherings. People who have symptoms are to self-isolate for 2 weeks, and those over 70, however fit and healthy, should stay home as much as possible. All a bit vague – ‘minimise’, ‘as much as possible’, anodyne phrases mixed in with warnings that many of us will lose loved ones over the coming weeks, and that as many as 20,000 people could die. Oh, and we must wash our hands. A lot.
We’re just in that over 70’s category, pretty healthy, and have a great deal of common sense, thank goodness, inherited from our childhood growing up in tough little post-war families. I don’t immediately see either of us getting the virus (foolish!) or needing to be sequestered. But we have been asked to comply, and it seems only sensible and right. We live in a small hamlet at the end of Cornwall, and we can keep ourselves to ourselves, and the younger members of the community have already stepped in to offer help where needed. But I worry about my children and grandchildren, in viral terms a mere ‘cough’s length’ from London, living in busy towns in Kent and Essex. What will happen to them? How civilised will people remain? There are already stories of abuse and threats directed at people who cough or sneeze on the Tube! Our veneer of civilised behaviour is ‘wafer-thin’, and can quickly rupture under pressure.
17th March. I wake early on Tuesday. I watch the birds visit the bird feeder; sparrows, great tits, chaffinches, jackdaws and magpies. The latter can’t get near enough it to feed safely, the jackdaws are still working on a cunning plan.
No sunshine today (that was short lived) and a damp chill in the air. I’ll spend another day on the waste ground, cutting down more brambles – I’m determined to make something of it this year. After all, I have all this time in ‘isolation’. I don’t want to spend all my time in the studio, and my part-time job will need re-appraising the light of this epidemic.
We decide to go early to the shops, to pick up a few extra things I forgot last week; floor cleaner, washing liquid – and Pete needs a hair cut. I suggest he do it now, while he still can. It’s no good trying to get toilet paper as they’re all stored somewhere else now, probably filling the outhouses and cupboards of the socially incontinent.
In contrast to last week, today the shop is quiet and subdued, and fairly empty, although by the time I’ve done my shopping the queues are beginning to build. I’ve been trying not to touch my face since I pulled the trolley out of its parking space, but Sod’s law, my nose starts running, then my eye itches, and my hand is there before I know it! At my checkout the till jams, and then the conveyor belt. I wait quietly in line, half expecting the guy behind me to ask me why I’m not starting to load up the belt as soon as a free space appears. But he doesn’t – in fact everyone seems very subdued. Pete comes in to the store to meet me, and wonders why I’m annoyed! (We’d agreed I’d do the shopping while he got his hair cut, no need for us both to over-expose.) He goes off in a huff to wait outside – sometimes I wonder why I bother to be sensible.
I spend the afternoon cutting back more brambles, and wondering if I will catch the virus, and how badly it will affect me, and whether I might in fact not survive. I speculate which would be worse, for me to die first, or Pete. Better for me to go, I conclude, Pete would always find someone else. Bad for the children though, and for me – I’m just not ready to leave them yet. And there are so many other things I need to do, like having my own solo exhibition when all this is over.
Wednesday 18th
Wednesday already, how did that happen? Another drawback of working from home is that the days pass by equally of note, and of equal unimportance.
I’m beginning to hear from artists who, following Government guidelines, need to cancel their residencies, even though they’d be as safe here as anywhere. It’s the travelling. The charity will be hit badly this year, and I suppose I might even lose my job. I’m not sure at this moment what I should be doing, but I’m slowly realising that I need to make a decision about the artist residency programme.
I want to sow some seeds, it seems like a positive thing to do, under the circumstances, and I’m quite late – in previous years I’d have them all in pots by now. I clear out our decrepit conservatory and suggest we call it a greenhouse from now on, as we’ll never be able to renovate it, or afford a new one. As long as it keeps off the winter winds, we don’t mind. At some point later we have lunch, and walk across the road to do a couple of hours of hacking away at brambles. We’re making progress, slowly. It’s still cold and grey, bleak, really. Our neighbour’s turkeys come to say hallo, but otherwise we work undisturbed, just the occasional expletive as thorns rip skin or become embedded in already sore fingers.
Later I ring my son, the only one of our children who lives on his own. A chef in a pub, and living in rented property, I’m especially worried about how he’ll manage, despite the vague announcements this morning that people will be helped, jobs will be protected. He seems calm.
On the evening news it is announced that schools will be closed, except for certain categories of children. Those of front line workers, for example. Again, I get the feeling that all this was known, and that we’re being drip fed, a little at a time. And already I’m tired of the message that we must do all we can to protect the NHS. If we’d had better policies in place, and had been looking after our NHS, not running it into the ground, we would be much better placed to fight this. My mind takes a darker turn. Crime always capitalises on society’s weaknesses and as the days turn to weeks there will be more and different types of criminal activity. And what if other essential services are hit? Waste disposal, sewerage, postal services, are things we take for granted just as much as schools and hospitals. We are not in control, we are not ‘ahead of the curve’ – we have always been playing catchup.
I wonder what Greta Thunberg is thinking. I wonder what Dominic Cummings is thinking. I wonder a great deal about ‘herd mentality’ and ‘behavioural economics’. I wonder how we will behave when things really begin to break down.
Thursday 19th
Fine and persistent rain today, so I don’t think about working outside. I clear up the studio, and wonder what I’ll do next- I would have been prepping my paintings for the Newlyn Society show, but that’s been cancelled. My emails are full of cancellations and shutdowns, artists deciding to cancel their residencies, galleries cancelling exhibitions and closing down.
I sort out some seeds in the ‘greenhouse’. Make lunch. My news app informs me that the interest rate has been lowered to an unprecedented 0.1%
After lunch we both begin what I should have started a month ago – clearing out the ‘Music room’, ready to paint it and transform it into a cosy sitting room for our future BnB. Except that privately I’m having second thoughts. I’d like to turn it into my study, so that I can work in warmth and comfort during the winter, and have somewhere pleasant to sit and daydream, look out of the window, write maybe. The room, like most of the others, needs stripping back to its bare stone and re-rendering, with a damp-proof treatment, but this isn’t likely to happen for a while, so we’ve agreed to tidy it up for now. Typically we’re distracted by the little Cornish ‘slab’ or range, that has survived a succession of owners. We look online and are pretty confident that it was made about a mile away at Holmans Foundry in Tregeseal. We fantasise about getting it working again, which would entail cleaning out the chimney and lining it, and probably pulling the stove out to ensure that its flue will connect up. Eventually we settle to a couple of hours of chiselling paint and plaster skim off the walls.
I stop eventually, to prepare supper and listen to the latest press conference. Boris sounds decidedly less in charge today. He spends ten minutes saying pretty much what has already been said, but makes rash claims such as suggesting that in 12 weeks we could ‘turn the tide’ and ‘send the Corona virus packing!’ Testing, he says, is being increased (but nowhere nearly quickly enough, say the experts) and today the first random drug trial has begun. He acknowledges that people will face difficulties, and urges businesses to ‘stand by your workers, and we’ll stand by you’ What hasn’t been said?
That those people already suffering from suspension or loss of their jobs will be given immediate and necessary financial aid.
That many small businesses are already failing.
That the number of infections is going to rapidly increase over the next few weeks.
That really we do need to impose lockdown now, not when we are forced to.
What plans are there to educate our children during the coming months?
How will the most vulnerable in our society be cared for?
What will happen when the food chain begins to fail? The supermarkets can cope for now, but as the number of the sick rises; how will we cope then?
The wonders of digital technology have been impressed on us ad nauseum, but why then does government not issue a statement that schooling must continue at home via What’s App, or other digital applications, as in Italy? Can it be so difficult to organise, while staff numbers are still relatively high? Can’t important exams be suspended, rather than making decisions based on progress so far? We know that there are always large numbers of ‘slackers’ who pull out all the stops at the last minute, and surprise even themselves with high grades. What will happen to them?
The most galling thing is to be told repeatedly that our actions will make it possible for the NHS to ‘cope’, by a government that has spent years running it into the ground.
There were over 400 deaths in Italy today. I think of Sabina, Giancarlo and the children in their apartment in Urbania, in lockdown since the beginning of March.
Friday 20th Evening announcement – as expected, pubs, bars, clubs, gyms and theatres are being told to close down, and we are advised to limit our social contact ‘as much as possible’. Boris asks the great British population not to meet tonight, for one last drink – but of course, they do. And they continue to congregate over the weekend, in parks and public spaces.
Billions are going to be pumped into businesses now, to support employees and their families, but some prefer to sack their workers, and take away their accommodation. Throwing them out on the street, in effect.
Mothers Day this weekend – 22 March. I missed seeing the children.
Monday 23rd March Last week was an extraordinary one. On Monday it was announced that the Corona Virus, Covid19, was here (well it had been ‘here’ for a while!), and that we would all need to take special measures to keep ourselves out of harm’s way. At the beginning of the week there was the possibility of the outbreak being under control ‘in 12 weeks’. Today we cannot see the end.
Each day the news is much the same. The NHS is starved of resources and necessities, such as face masks and protective clothing. Billions of pounds have been injected into the economy to keep businesses afloat and people employed. The Chancellor announces more money to keep the self-employed going. There are interminable questions about ‘testing’ and the availability of tests. People fight and argue in supermarkets. And there is no toilet roll to be had. On the plus side, it is sunny here at last, after months of rain, gales and overcast skies.
Pete has an appointment at the hospital today, Monday, to see a consultant about his cataracts, which are now very bad – he can’t see very well at all, and glasses don’t help. We decide to call there early, to see if the appointment is actually still scheduled, and then we’ll get our shopping and go home. At the hospital we’re told the appointment has been cancelled. We pick up shopping, plus a few plants for the garden, go home.
Messaging and phoning the kids, we hear most of them are working from home. The grandchildren are being home-schooled. I wonder what that will mean for the many under-privileged kids in homes suffering from shortage of space, food and funds, and those in even worse conditions.
My Italian friend’s family have been confined for over a month now; hundreds die every day. Now we hear that Spain has had the biggest number of cases and fatalities.
Air traffic is being restricted, and the big airlines are demanding the government help. Thousands will be put out of work. People are angry and afraid.
In the evening there is a special announcement at 8.30pm asking us all to stay at home, not just the over-70’s. Lockdown, finally.
I realise I will have to make a decision about our residency programme, and decide to cancel the residencies for six months. It may be for much longer.
Tuesday 25th Today we will lock up the artist cottage. I go down to check everything is ok. What a pity that so many artists will not be able to be here this summer. I begin the slow process of cancelling residencies, and trying to reschedule for 2021.
In the studio I’m working on a series of prints of Tresco landscapes. Just to keep me ticking over, until I feel I want to paint again.
I am also in the process of helping artist Ken Turner to write his catalogue. He is now 93 and lives near St Ives. In the 1960’s, as a young painter, he met John Berger, Fernand Leger, and had a solo exhibition reviewed by Edward Lucie-Smith. He pioneered UK performance art in the late 60’s, working with inflatable environments, and has been a constant critic of the art establishment, and politics generally, ever since. Ken was preparing the catalogue for a key exhibition in April – which has now been put on hold. Now we agree not to meet up, and must collaborate by email. I will miss our conversations.
Not seeing friends, not even having the option to see children and grandchildren, is going to cause so much distress. We will have to learn to live differently. Our society will change, inevitably. We can’t go back to the way things were. Things will never be the same again. Our garden has been a pleasure for quite a while: Primroses are surprisingly tough little plants that seem to flower in defiance of icy winds and rain. And we’ve had a lot of that this winter. But just now the garden is full of colour; daffodils, tulips, crocuses all blooming. The birds are taking a lot of baths this year!
It didn’t take long to tidy it up this year, and we’ve put a layer of mulch to keep out the weeds and deter the local cats from shitting. So it’s good to have a new outdoor project, and as long as the weather stays fine this week I’ll work on the new ’garden’ across the road. It will keep me fit, and I may be able to grow a few vegetables, if I can clear the lumps of granite out of the soil!
Thursday 26 March
I decide to go shopping – I’ll be quick, efficient, and follow the guidelines. In Penzance I am stopped at a roadblock by a policeman, who asks me the reason for my journey. ‘Going to the supermarket’ seems to be an adequate reason – which makes me wonder who he would turn back? Shopping was not as quick and efficient as I’d expected. There were no queues outside, and the shop was fairly empty, but there was a marked difference in behaviour between men and women. Most women customers kept their distance, but the men seemed to have no regard for guidelines, and rushed around regardless. I felt exposed and anxious – and angry too. If this is the effect on me, what is it like for people under much more pressure, living in busy overcrowded cities, in overcrowded homes? Later I work for hours in the garden. It’s a very mindful activity, digging out weeds and stones, very therapeutic. I was due to collect my painting from the Heseltine Gallery today, but we need to limit our travel now.
Friday 27th
The wind has dropped today, so I take the opportunity to burn the dead wood and brambles quickly and cleanly. I clear two huge piles. All the green waste, nettles and other weeds, will go into the garden waste bin.
I send off the digital files for my prints. I’ll have to wait a while for them, but I’m hoping it will be worth it.
I’m not sleeping too well, despite all the garden work. Worrying about things I can’t do anything about. It will be better when I’m painting again.
I have paid less attention to the news this week. It seems circular and repetitive. At press conferences the journalists worry away at the same questions, finding new ways to ask old questions. Boris Johnson and Chris Whitty are no longer present, having tested positive for CV, also Nick Hammond.
Our youngest son Marc, being a pub chef, has no work now and has to wait for the business to make a claim to Government for ‘furloughed’ staff. But they neglected to pay their staff for the week before the pubs were closed.
Monday 30th March Pete has taken huge lumps of granite out of the small patch that I’d dug over for potatoes. I’ve planted potatoes, Rocket, Chard, and a few radish. Just for a start.
We have been digging up bits of crockery and old nails, but then Pete turned over a little iron figure. Just head and arms, open mouth, arms raised. A curious little thing that I can’t put a date to. Even Tania doesn’t know what it might be. I put it on Instagram in the hope someone might recognise it.
Tuesday 31st
Garden work today, again, I think – but not until I’ve gone through my emails and attended to admin. At breakfast I’m looking at a website (tut!) when I suddenly realise what my next paintings will be, and a sense of relief and surprise floods me.
I’m still rescheduling residencies for next year; most people want to leave their deposit with us, which is generous. We are a small charity and will be badly affected if this crisis goes on and on indefinitely.
I’m worrying about Marc, who has no money coming in.
Thursday 2nd Shopping today – I’m getting to be quite a creature of habit, and Thursday seems a quiet day. I call at the bank before shopping because I want to transfer some money. Unfortunately the masked woman some 12 feet away from me explains that the bank is not dealing with things like that at the moment. What exactly are they dealing with?
Shopping is another game of dodge-the-ignorant. This week they tend to be young. The young are invincible, of course. A sweet couple, they have a long conversation by the butter and margarine, while I stand waiting, patiently, thinking that they’ll move on. They don’t.
An older woman apologises to me three separate times as we surprise each other at the ends of the aisles. A woman rushes by swathed in a thick winter scarf, I can just see her eyes. I fight the urge to touch my face, again! Why is it always in the supermarket? There is now a high pane of glass between me and the checkout assistant. When the shopping is loaded into the car I wet-wipe my hands, the steering wheel, the key (!) and the door handle before driving off. It’s a slow and subtle, deep kind of anxiety.
Work in the garden is therapeutic, and much needed. I’m digging a new patch over.
It’s full of weed roots and Montbretia corms; so many corms that I can’t possibly remove them all. Oh, and the occasional lump of granite that jars my shoulder when I hit it with the fork. It’s coming along nicely though.
Evening announcement: Matt Hancock has unveiled his ‘five-pillar plan’ – not perhaps a ‘really cunning plan, Baldrick’ but…I lose interest in his explanation.
Apparently 163,000 people have been tested, over 33,000 have tested positive for Corona Virus, but they’re still not testing the front line staff. 45,000,000 pieces of equipment have been delivered, 6000,000 masks and other surgical equipment – it’s the numbers game, ‘blinding with science’. And, oh, fantastic achievement, the emergency hospital they built in ten days! And more to come, apparently. Incredible what can be done when a country is in a state of panic. Just imagine what could be achieved with genuinely effective and informed, imaginative forward planning by a government that really took its role (to govern) seriously.(Latin ‘gubernare: to rule, guide, direct. Greek ‘kybernan’: to pilot a ship)
Friday 3rd
Gardening all day today, digging the new patch again, to remove more roots and stones.
I’m hardly paying attention to the press releases now. Halfway through this week I realised that real ‘news’ is in short supply, and the same facts, figures and questions beg the same numbingly obvious conclusion. No-one knows when this will end. No-one knows when ‘adequate’ PPE or other supplies will be achieved. No-one really knows how our economy will cope, and, let’s face it, no-one cares at the moment. People of all ages, with and without ‘underlying health conditions’ are dying, and families of residents in care homes are being told that their elderly parent will not be treated if they succumb to Covid19. (Yet a few days ago a GP was publicly denounced for posting a notice saying the same thing)
The weather threatens to be sunny and warm this weekend, and quite naturally people will want to be out in it. It’s been a terrible winter, long, wet and exhausting for many, followed by a crisis of epic proportions. Of course people want to escape.
Saturday 4th The cold north-easterly wind has at last swung round to the West, bringing a kinder ‘blow’ for a while. Our sunny garden is warm, though gusty, but after lunch, when I cross the road to the new garden, the wind has moved to the south-east and as well as being cold, it’s incredibly rough. I spend about an hour, re-digging that new patch, removing more roots and corms, using the lumps of granite to mark the edge of what will be another vegetable patch. When I retreat indoors I feel battered and exhausted. How can the wind have that effect? This is something I have only become aware of since we lived here, near the Atlantic, where we’re exposed to the extremes of weather.
As I cook the evening meal I listen to the radio:
More than 700 people have died today, making a total of over 4,300.
4,000 or so prisoners are to be given early release to prevent a massive outbreak in our prisons. (We’re not given enough information to know whether this is a sensible decision.)
A five year old boy died today, the youngest so far. He had ‘underlying health conditions’.
In Spain and Italy the number of fatalities is decreasing, is this a sign of the success of lockdown?
Favourite springtime beauty spots such as the Peak District have been relatively deserted today. Tomorrow it will be sunnier and warmer.
As usual the weeks and months have rolled by like a dream, and here I am wondering what happened to our summer. Last week I was swimming, 7 days later we have heavy rain, strong winds and plummeting temperatures…but I’m getting ahead of myself.
July – August
Mid July we’d been visited by two special friends from Kent and we shared a lovely summer day at Sennen Cove.
It’s really important to us that we’ve kept our ties with our friends and even if we don’t see them very often, we know they’re there, and try to keep in touch, whether by phone or social media.
And I was working in the studio, on a new little series ‘Four Quartets’ after Elliot’s poems, and prepping my ‘lunar’ painting for a members exhibition in Falmouth, at the Poly.
On hot days I escaped to the beach to swim, sometimes Pete came too, but he’s been painting and fitting covers to the trickle vents on the windows, hoping that they will keep out the rain when it blows horizontally, which it often does, in the winter!
Priest Cove – perfect for a swim on a hot day
Pete’s sculptures – he can’t stop ‘doing’ for long!
Apart from a brief visit to Kent to see the children and collect another window from the joinery, and an equally brief visit from the children in return, most of August was preoccupied with preparations for a trip to Italy to visit an arts organisation that runs artist residencies. We hope to arrange exchanges , although we’re not sure how that might work. I left for Urbania on 22nd, with one of the Trustees of the arts organisation I work for.
Although we’ve had a lovely summer in Cornwall (nothing like the heat-waves in the Southeast, but still very warm) it was just wonderful to step out of the plane into the heat of an Italian summer. Our week in Urbania was filled with meetings with artists, exploring museums churches and galleries, and conversations, and we even managed a final day on the beach, which was a real treat! Our new Italian friends (and hopefully collaborators) will pay us a return visit later this year.
Back home at the end of the month, to grey skies and rain…it seemed very alien in comparison to the cloudless deep blue skies and verdant landscapes we’d enjoyed a day before! Over the next week I became gloomy, but the weather here cheered up again, and I could go swimming, and made the most of opportunities.
End August/Early September – The early mornings are filled with the chattering of Jackdaws They all seem to come together at this time of year, and are very sociable, even with other birds. Pete is replacing the large sash window in the ‘annexe’ – it’s a big job and he’s on a learning curve again. He’s had to cut out some of the stonework with an angle grinder, and replace the sill with a new piece of slate.
All finished and it looks fantastic – and so much better than the previous window which was made up of small panes. Pete has also installed secondary glazing to the windows at the rear of the room, and is now fitting double-glazed French doors, in place of the old doors. Once they’re installed that end of the cottage should be much warmer and draught-free in the winter.
And hopefully our derelict conservatory will weather another winter, although it’s not going to last much longer!
I haven’t been in studio since my return from Italy – too much BV work to do in preparation for a meeting mid-September, when we report on our trip. I’ve enrolled for a basic printmaking course in the hope it’ll give my week some structure. I have a long list of things that I can do for development work for the BV residency programme, and it’s so much easier to do that work than it is to go in the studio and work for myself – so I need something to shape my week around.
It’s now 23rd September – after two days of relentless rain there’s a bit of blue sky showing, and I must go for a walk. I’ll check to see if there are any blackberries left – we had a bumper crop this year, and collected 6lbs in one walk (10 jars of jam!). And our crab apple had such a lot of tiny fruits I thought I’d experiment and make some crabapple jelly too – delicious, especially with cheese!
We’ve heard that our new Italian friends are coming to Cornwall for Christmas – it will be nice to repay their hospitality, and show them all the things that we love about this part of the world. And we will see what the new year brings to our collaboration.
Fri May 18th – we finally got our house sign up! We bought the letters at Christmas but it’s taken all this time to get it ready. But finally I painted the garage door, and the sign went up. I’ve now made a studio sign too. Between mid-May and mid June we were both in the doldrums – here in the West the weather was still cold and wet much of the time, apart from the odd day here and there. Pete was struggling with the bathroom for bedroom 4: it had a lovely roll-top bath which needed re-surfacing, and I couldn’t find anyone who could do the job in situ, so after a lot of mithering we agreed it had to go.
The work on bedroom 4 stopped meanwhile, and Pete started rubbing down the windows and door facing the road, ready for painting, while I tried to figure out how we were going to move the bath. It was extremely heavy, and wouldn’t go down the stairs, we knew that. And who was going to move it? – impossible for just the two of us!
I had begun to hate my studio – I was feeling really fed up, and desperate for some sign of good weather, and for weeks I couldn’t face working. Except at my job, and as it happened I had an extra load of work, thanks to the Government’s new data protection regulations, so I had plenty to occupy my brain. But by mid June I needed to get away for a few days – I needed to see friends and family, and step back into my old life briefly.
It was great! I caught up with artist friends, saw the children and grandchildren, trod a few old paths, and went to London to see the All too Human exhibition at the Tate and the preview of a new show of work by London friends Margaret Kerfoot and Ali Shipton who have been working on a collaborative project since 2015. And it was so warm in Kent! I began to feel my old self again.
Back home the sun was shining, and that was when our own spring/summer began!
We went to St Ives on the Friday and it was a splendid day – no coats for us, at last!
The Patrick Heron exhibition at Tate St Ives was in full swing; large exuberant canvases full of wonderful colour combinations, and then a fascinating evening listening to the stories told by Dr Martin Shaw, at Porthmeor Studios – you are never too old to be told stories, believe me. The audience was spellbound! And I was beginning to get my mojo back.
Storyteller Martin Shaw believes that the world ‘waits to be admired by us’. On 25th June I walked up Bartinney, thinking about this – and I admired her, from her towering pink Campion, head-high in places, to the silky sweep of the barley field. From the denseness and profusion of the hedgerow to the stony bits-n-pieces track. I understand what it is to be ‘of’ a place, not ‘from’ a place, and I admire. This is where I am happy: in the fields, on the tracks, by the sea, walking the hills…
The reed pond blossoms every year in June and the field around is covered in drifts of ‘cotton wool’
As it nears the end of June (and my ** birthday, unfortunately) I begin thinking about the mentoring catch-up weekend in three weeks’ time. I haven’t made any new work. I’ve been busy doing everything but.
I’ve started an artists-group for artists in this area, a kind of support group, which I hope will blossom into something special. I’ve been walking in the sun. I’ve been doing the garden, and I’m still trying to figure out how to move the bath (Pete is working on the front of the house meanwhile- he is installing a new sash window)
I walked out one evening and came across six foxes playing in the evening sunlight – such a lovely surprise! I watched them for quite a while before they realised I was there.
My birthday. I went swimming. In the sea, the icy Atlantic. What a great way to celebrate! The temperature is rising – nowhere near as hot as in the South East, but so welcome.
At some point I began to do some drawings, and then moved back into the studio and made a few prints, and then began a painting. I’m on the move again, at last, after a long period of waiting.
By mid July (the mentoring weekend) I had two paintings ready and a batch of prints.
And we’d decided to get a removals company to move the bath. (Why did it take so long?These things sometimes just do!)
The bath is now gone – it took four men and we had to take up the floorboards, but now we can move on.
July 21st – Lawfrowda Day – a weekend of music, parades, dressing-up and laughter!
You have to watch out for the birds around here at Lafrowda time- they can be quite alarming
It was the day after Tom’s accident. I know he’s 15, but he’s still my first grandson and will always be in some sense, a child to me. Teddy Bears were being invited to take a parachute jump off the Parish Church, and I happened to have one that Rebecca gave me, so off we went.
In the queue, waiting to be hoisted up to get his parachute
Certificate of Bravery!
It’s the first of August today. My elder brother’s birthday, but he died two years ago. In 2016, that year when all the good young men and women died, so many, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Victoria Wood, Gene Wilder, Fidel Castro, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Terry Wogan, Prince… they fell like trees through the year, and Tony died in August. Pete’s brother had led the way that year, he left us in January, just after Bowie, and we thought, he’s in excellent company. It was a sad and grim year: Brexit, and then Trump, Putin, and then Kim. And we moved house. And nothing stays the same.
Yesterday I swam again, in a deep pool at Cot Valley. The rainy storms of the weekend have finally cleared and it’s warm again, and we’re hoping it’ll carry on through until November, because we’re just not ready for winter. Not yet, please.
What have I been doing all this time? I haven’t done much studio work, which has put me into a very dark mood at times. Not that I haven’t had the opportunity – I somehow haven’t had the heart – I don’t know why, I have had a bad case of the ‘blues’! My dear friend Mary, who visited us from Kent a couple of weeks ago pointed out that I have had a lot on my plate, and a lot on my mind, and that maybe there just wasn’t the space to think about making new work. I suppose she’s right: when I add up the hours I spend on other things in the day, and when I think about the things I have had to do recently, there hasn’t been much space for creative ideas. I’m hoping this will change soon.
So what have we been doing? March was very cold, but when we had a fine day we spent some time on the waste ground opposite the house, clearing masses of brambles and nettles away. The pond is very silted up, too much for us to clear by hand, so that’ll have to wait, and it also needs a new liner, so it’s not a priority at the moment. But it was good to be working outside, rather than being cooped up indoors at the tail-end of winter. I have also been working on the garden. Having decided that I’d reinstate a ‘lawn’ I spent quite a few days clearing roots and stones, raking the soil and trying to get a flattish area to take the grass seed. I think I sowed the seed just after Easter, but the weather has been so cold and wet, it’s taken quite a while to establish.
At Easter we treated ourselves to an evening out to see the Man-Engine at Geevor Mine. This is a piece of performance art devised to celebrate the mining community: it’s a travelling show of a huge man-powered puppet of a miner, accompanied by a story adapted from the diary of a miner in the early 20th century.
The Man-Engine, lifted with a JCB and operated by performers on the ground
We decided to see the evening performance, and thought that, as parking might be tricky, we’d leave the car at Botallack and walk the half-mile along the cliff path, counting on a full moon to see us back to the car safely. Best laid plans, as they say…
The moon became obscured by thick cloud, and although that section of path is quite wide, we had a tricky time of it, as it’s very rough underfoot! There was some ambient light, and using the torch on my phone we managed to negotiate the huge puddles and ruts that we’d taken note of on our walk earlier. Arriving home later, the moon sailed out to greet us from the mass of cloud!
We’d offered to help marshall the Gravity Buggy-racing at Tregeseal Hill on Easter Monday, so we were up early putting on the layers, ready for another long, cold stand-around. As it happened, the rain cleared away, and the event ran a dry course, which was brilliant. The entries ranged from the basic to the highly-engineered, with some wild ideas thrown in which looked as if they’d never last the course.
The cake buggy was easily the most impressive. The least aero-dynamic, it survived three heats, coming to a sad but impressive end on the fourth heat when it hit the straw bales at the finish line, soared up into the air and over the barricade, spectacularly hurling (real) cake everywhere – bloody brilliant!
Real (vegan) cake – tons of it! Children were not allowed to eat it!
The following week seemed a bit quiet after that. I had a meeting to prepare for, and various jobs to do, Pete was re-routing the electrics in Bedroom 4, and replacing floorboards. At the weekend he went off to Kent to collect new doors and windows, leaving me a small quiet space to contemplate why I was so blocked with my work. There was no answer. I just didn’t want to work! But I did finish the design for the mural on the barn, and I painted that during the dry spells.At the end of the month our friends from Kent came to stay for a few days. We haven’t seen them since last year, and it was lovely to catch up. We visited Tremenheere Sculpture garden, which is magical, and spent a day in St Ives (each time we go there it is sunny!)
Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens
Not having friends and family around now has left a big hole, and it takes a long time to make new and lasting friendships. This is probably part of my problem: whenever I was blocked before I could talk to other artist friends and something would always come up…now that support network isn’t there yet
The May Bank holiday weekend came and went, gloriously warm – followed by another week of changeable, chilly weather. Last Sunday we were having breakfast when we saw a cow at the end of the lane.
Pete went out to head her off while I called the neighbouring farmer, and between us we managed to corral her back into a field, after she’d knocked down a wooden prop to the owner’s chicken run and generally messed about – silly things, cows.
A few weeks ago I canvassed our neighbours about starting a book club, and the Dowran Women’s Book Club had its inaugural meeting on Thursday evening. There are six of us so far – maybe there’ll be more, but everyone seemed to welcome a chance to meet up, and we’ve given the local Library a list of books. Our next meeting will be early June, if the library can source the first book for us in time.
It’s raining again today.
The new grass is coming along nicely, a very bright green, and most of the plants have settled in. Pete has put the new small window in Bedroom 4, and I’m waiting for the weather to clear so that I can paint the garage doors and our new sign. Onward and upward!
I wasn’t going to write another blog until we had got well into March, but the past week has been breathtaking. Blizzards, ice and Storm Emma, racing across the country from East to West, disrupting daily lives and reminding us all about climate change and the increasing extremes of weather to which we’re slowly becoming exposed.
Wednesday 28 – Kent had already received plenty of snow when our share arrived as I began work in the studio on Wednesday morning. Within a couple of hours the hamlet was transformed into a world of white.
Despite the blizzard warnings I had to get out and take a look for myself. I wasn’t disappointed. I walked along the old river bed at the bottom of our hill, disturbing pairs of Oyster Catchers who had come to shelter on the still-flowing stream. The gorse and hawthorns lining the way were weighed down by layers of snow – the freezing wind transforming everything into a Narnia-landscape.
In Narnia
Thursday 1st March – After another extremely cold wind-shrieking night the world seemed calm in the morning, and I thought it was worth going out again, for a short walk around Bartinney. The hill was blocked with snow, and the bridle paths were heavy going (they’re rough at the best of times), being covered with a deep layer of snow that hid all obstacles.
The walk stretched out as I explored different paths, taking more photos, and eventually coming back round to the Sancreed road, which was fairly passable, unlike the roads where we are.
I took photographs of the snowdrifts on the hill, and watched our neighbours surfing down the hill. The fun way to travel when you don’t have a sleigh!
Friday was a miserable day – the snow on the roads had thawed overnight, but the air was freezing, leaving a thick layer of clear ice on the road outside. I stayed indoors.
The thaw continued, and Saturday was fairly bright. I went into Penzance for shopping, and it felt strangely exhilarating, after days of silence and slowness and cold, to be driving along: to be moving at speed.
The sea front at Newlyn was littered with pebbles and torn-up seaweed and Kelp. Foraging gulls rose protesting from the piles of uprooted material laying on the path and grassy areas as walkers disturbed them. Still very cold, I realized, even though I was walking briskly, and I dipped into the gallery to check out the new exhibition, Hummadruz, and get a coffee!
Hummadruz is an exhibition that brings together the magical elements of Cornwall’s present and past. Paintings and prints by Ithell Colquhon, who I discovered a few years ago, not realising at the time, her deep connection with this part of Cornwall. Magical talismans, performance, geology and pre-history, ritualistic objects and digital spells… it’s a corrective to the busy and pragmatic tourism that is so essential to the life of this part of Cornwall.
Coming in to the gallery from the cold stone-littered paths, with seaweed hanging from fence rails, the exhibition seemed like a natural extension of my thoughts.
Newlyn promenade littered with pebbles and seaweed
Painting – Ithell Colquhon
Later – I had to walk again, this time to one of my favourite places, the place where Spring always comes early. I parked at the top of the valley and walked to the cove, noting the light, the birdsong, the absence of snow, except for little patches here and there, tucked under a wall, or a hedge. The river was in full spate, but it had a different quality – it leaped and sparkled; where it dropped at each granite step, it seemed to be fighting its way up again, playfully, rather than rushing in a torrent to the cove. The sea, as it came into view, was luminous. But it was cold at the cove, there were thin sheets of ice on the rock pools, and lowering clouds.
Unexpectedly, as I walked back up the valley, the sun came out, and transformed the whole place into Spring. There are old hawthorns and willows lining the banks of the river, and in that golden light they glow with wonderful colours: purples, green-greys, bright greens. The birds were singing: I saw a bullfinch, chaffinchs, robins, tits…
the Reed Pond
I walked round to the reed pond, which is an old reservoir that held the water that ran the big wheel for the mine. Sat there for a while, amazed at the colour, and the difference between this day, and Wednesday. It didn’t seem possible. Sunday – Pete took a day off, and we walked again. This time from Botallack to Pendeen Light. We were well dressed for the cold, and luckily for rain, because at the lighthouse the weather closed in around us, and lashed with rain. We made our way back to Geevor for a pasty (well-earned, we thought) and waited out an increasingly wet afternoon.
Here the spoil heaps from the mine leak out minerals that stain the cliffs
Sometimes we talk about our move here, and question ourselves. We’ve moved away from our family, and miss them, and our old friends, but what would life have been like had we stayed in Kent? We will always have these questions, and they’re unanswerable. But there is a variety and a life to this landscape that wasn’t available to us before, and it’s something we can share and communicate.
The kitchen is nearly finished. I am doing studio work too.
I’m thinking about the pottery shards found whilst digging, and how they’ve become part of my process. They’re just bits of broken crockery to most people, but to me they have eloquence and a sense of mystery. They’re ‘old-fashioned’, antique, they have a history only to be guessed at. Each piece has a story.
We’re entertained by the birds that come to forage, and the rabbit, who lives somewhere among the trees and sits on the grass verge at night opposite our kitchen window, munching grass and dandelion. Ivy the turkey wanders along there too. She’s lonely, we think. The two males have ‘pal’-d up, and she’s left to her own resources. Some days we see more animals than people. We keep busy and try to ignore the impact of the lockdown, but when will we get back to spending time with others? How soon? How long? How?
to fit the new frame into place.
Ivy is a turkey, and has come of age. Her pretty egg is almost white, with delicate freckles of pale brown.
We don’t know yet how to use them, but think that the pond area could make a nice sunken sitting area, using the granite to make seats around the edge.
The room, like most of the others, needs stripping back to its bare stone and re-rendering, with a damp-proof treatment, but this isn’t likely to happen for a while, so we’ve agreed to tidy it up for now. Typically we’re distracted by the little Cornish ‘slab’ or range, that has survived a succession of owners. We look online and are pretty confident that it was made about a mile away at Holmans Foundry in Tregeseal. We fantasise about getting it working again, which would entail cleaning out the chimney and lining it, and probably pulling the stove out to ensure that its flue will connect up. Eventually we settle to a couple of hours of chiselling paint and plaster skim off the walls.
Gardening all day today, digging the new patch again, to remove more roots and stones.
Our week in Urbania was filled with meetings with artists, exploring museums churches and galleries, and conversations, and we even managed a final day on the beach, which was a real treat! Our new Italian friends (and hopefully collaborators) will pay us a return visit later this year.
Pete has also installed secondary glazing to the windows at the rear of the room, and is now fitting double-glazed French doors, in place of the old doors. Once they’re installed that end of the cottage should be much warmer and draught-free in the winter.
Between mid-May and mid June we were both in the doldrums – here in the West the weather was still cold and wet much of the time, apart from the odd day here and there. Pete was struggling with the bathroom for bedroom 4: it had a lovely roll-top bath which needed re-surfacing, and I couldn’t find anyone who could do the job in situ, so after a lot of mithering we agreed it had to go.
At the end of the month our friends from Kent came to stay for a few days. We haven’t seen them since last year, and it was lovely to catch up. We visited Tremenheere Sculpture garden, which is magical, and spent a day in St Ives (each time we go there it is sunny!)
pwilsonsmith 