free lunch

More of this perishing cold weather but the sun shineth and I have a casserole - pork with orange and star anise, ready in the slow cooker which has been doing its slow thing through the night in preparation for a visit to Brighton flat by Mater and spouse. Pork, you might say, is a funny thing for a vegetarian to be preparing, but I have relented somewhat. That isn't the right word but I prefer it to 'relapsed' which doesn't feel right either. The cold weather plus cooking for others means casserole, means meat. I am ok eating it occasionally but do not find I want it more than this. Mater's spouse simply wouldn't know what to do with a chick pea.

I went to a poetry workshop in the large Quaker meeting house near the sea front yesterday - the workshop leader someone I know well. The room we sat in was so reminiscent of the kind of rooms I used to teach in, and indeed the room where I attended my very first writing workshop. A combination of shabby and generous, high ceilings, old boards made of compressed sawdust, painted blue, with dog-eared notices about watercolour and meditation classes. Central heating radiators enormous and inefficient. Someone left urns full of boiled water, but nothing to make coffee or tea with. The class happened to coincide with a Make Brighton Healthy day - lovely free lunch for anyone who wanted (veg soup, tabbouleh, salads, fresh juices) and complementary therapies.

Sometimes there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Viewing the Situation

And the leaves on the ash tree are a deeper shade of red and the forests is aflame with autumn. Here I sit looking over tree tops, and last night I was in the middle of London for lovely daughter's birthday bash in the Soho theatre bar. London was my place too when I was her age and I didn't envisage a time when I would no longer live there. Each time I go I am astonished, not just by the number of people out there but how life is lived on the streets in a way it never used to be. I am no longer from there, yet still feel the knowledge of it intimately.

Short and sweet - not me, but this post because there are things I need to do before tomorrow:

1. Get rid of this virus thing that comes in waves and makes me feel queasy and uneasy. Life is, you know, quite challenging enough and it probably goes without saying that today is another pyjama day.

2. Watch the Halloween special of Psychoville, which I imagine everyone who watched the original Psychoville series will be doing.

3. Watch the five remaining episodes of Mad Men series three (unlikely).

4. Open the door to give sweets to Halloweening children. Mr. Signs on duty this year, he has bought two packets of Haribo and some Cadbury's Heroes which won't be nearly enough but neither have we put out the usual carved pumpkin, so we might not have as many visitors.

5. Change the bed linen. Or perhaps not.

Much viewing to be done, and tomorrow is the start of NaNo. Fingers crossed etc.

If I go a bit quiet then it is either a very Good Sign or complete disaster. I do, as you know, live on the Edge.

Le Weekend

A period of insomnia, the kind that has me waking at three in the morning. Three o'clock, either end of the day, is always difficult, a friend calls it "crucifixion time", and it does seem to nail me to something or other. I try never to plan for anything at three in the afternoon, and when I worked night shifts in a hospital it was the time when all worst things happened. But last night, after another trip to IKEA that lasted until closing time (I won't explain, believe me you won't want to know), I was so overtired I couldn't actually get to sleep until nearly three. I then woke four hours later, and decided to seize the day: swim, writing session, food shop. I bought two large rainbow trout from the new local fishmonger who catches them locally and Mr. Signs cooked them Meuniere-style, while I slept, and we had them for supper. Being vegetarian now (apart from fish), this amount of concentrated protein left me feeling strangely breathless, as though I myself were a fish out of water gasping for my own element. I didn't like it - the feeling, I mean. The fish was actually delicious. And this evening I've been re-drafting a poem where trout came in the form of some creature's mottled skin.

A Lewes workshop day tomorrow, and much else to get done. Monday we spend our first night in the Brighton flat. Excited.

Light Flight

We went to Brighton today, later than intended because I was only up and ready after mid-day. The light here on the edge of the forest was soft and benign, though there was a sharpness in the air, it is still winter. I dressed in my elephant-motif quilted coat, wore pashmina and knitted gloves. The business that took us to Brighton is our new place: a one-bedroom, large-windowed, beautiful flat not far from the sea, which is to serve as the Signs pied-a-terre and possible workspace for Mr. Signs and me. It has needed a lot doing, is not yet ready, but the walls have all been plastered and the living room painted a colour that is almost white, but with a gentleness in the hue. Every time I see the place I feel happy, and lucky. We walked along the sea front, and the clear light from sea and sky - the light! So different from forest light, it went right into me, spirits rose effortlessly to meet it. We had late lunch in an old Edwardian sea food restaurant, ate oysters on ice with lemon wedges and tabasco sauce. The sun began to go down, Mr. Signs missed the match between Arsenal and Chelsea, but Arsenal (his team) lost anyway, we listened to snatches of it on the radio driving home.

Yesterday, a poetry group meeting in Lewes, a new beginning in a room above a pub. Someone said, the buds are beginning to appear, and I know she was talking about real buds out in nature, but somehow I took it personally, as a kind of positive diagnostic assessment of the inner aspect of things.

In the coming week, things are needing, wanting my attention. I wish for strength and vitality, beyond wildest dreams (used to dream I could fly, we all have those). If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride or, in some versions of the rhyme, they would fly. Let them be horses then. I'll ride, fly.

le Shabbat

Friday night is the beginning of le weekend. As I no longer go out to do Proper Work le weekend shouldn’t really feel different to any other time, especially as there are no school-age children at home now. But for some reason it does feel different, and it isn’t just that Mr. Signs usually comes home half an hour early on a Friday and it has nothing to do with what is on telly. I think I must be feeling the out-breath of millions of people relaxing into the idea of a free space, time to put the feet up or to dance, paint pictures, go to the flicks, bingo, pub. I light the candles, and it feels different to lighting the candles on other week days – but I never grew up observing Shabbat so it can’t be that (unless it is my ancient ancestors pulling at some hitherto unacknowledged part of me). Whatever it is, though, that creates the Friday night feeling, I like it.

I also like winter nights. Meeting with some workshopping folks today, a couple of people were talking about wonderful benefits of having a light box for those who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. I have always felt that I am much more likely to have S.A.D. in the summer months. It is as though an inner light that is switched on in the dark months is flicked off again when the days are lighter. Particular bad are the summer months when the sky is overcast, for then one has neither light nor darkness.

Er – I seem to have begun talking about the weather. Goodness, is that the time? I have a pressing appointment with – oh yes, Newsnight Review! I knew there was something or other particular to a Friday night.

Shabbat Shalom, peeps.