I am going to write this in one messy go.
It’s the first day of August and I am in the Cotswolds. I went for a walk through the field last night, the sheep were going mental, yelling to warn each other of my foreign presence. There is a parched feeling in the air. The grass, dry and crackly under foot. In the corner, away from the sheep, I picked my way through an area of high growing thistles, and saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A hare lolloped slowly out of the undergrowth and then stopped, about twenty feet away, to survey me, before hopping through the gate into the next field. Thinking of Chloe Dalton’s book Raising Hare, I spent a while picking through the long grass looking for a trembling leveret, but found nothing.
We are here for a week. I was diagnosed with frozen shoulder a few weeks ago and have been struggling through my rehab exercises every day, with the help of a stick that I found on the beach in the South of France. It’s painful! (not the stick the frozen shoulder). It wakes me up at night and make it near impossible to put on a bra. T has to tie my hair up for me. I’m hoping hoping it gets better soon but it might not. It might prevent me from playing football for a while and this I’d rather not think about.
We played charades last night. I acted out The Odyssey. Climbing onto my ship, killing people with my bow and arrow (not a historically accurate choice of weapon according to my son) and looking out to sea saying, 'I want to go home’ in a plaintive voice. My Mother in law tried ‘Peter Pan’ and got stuck on Peter. She tried to act out the ‘pee’ sound of Peter by wooshing her hands out from between her legs in a motion of peeing liquid. It was all very funny. Crying laughing funny.
The tractors are bringing in the hay. They do it through the night, their lights like zombie eyes in the distance, moving slowly through the darkness. Then they trundle past, with big blocks of hay piled up vertiginously high on the trailers behind. I wonder what this weather means for the farmers, for the animals that are supposed to be grass fed, when their grass is yellowed and dead.
After bringing all the wrong books on holiday to France, I have brought only novels this time, one of which is an old book of Donal Ryan’s called The Thing About December which I am excited to read. His book We Are The Kings comes out in a few weeks and he has kindly answered questions for the Changes interview so I’m excited to bring you that soon. And I love the idea of reading about Irish characters in Irish towns, when there is a trip to Ireland on the horizon. My friend Molly gifted me the most beautiful early edition of The Dubliners which I have been loving re-reading as well.
Oh! I turned forty eight! I planned a big birthday party and after several sleepless nights worrying about it, I then cancelled it. Instead I saw different friends in different places, (my local pub, the reservoir, Ibiza,) and had a lovely low key experience of turning over another year with zero stress. I wonder is this growing up. Listening to yourself. Realising whats right for you in the moment. I’m proud of my decision to call off the party. And I was so relieved at the time. So far forty eight feels the same but I have found myself only wanting to wear skirts. I think I’ve posted about skirts before on here. But I’m still buying them from Vinted. Still wearing them. With trainers and socks and baggy tops, like this.
What else? I had my last gig for a while a few nights ago, playing the Thursday night of the Irish festival All Together Now. Thousands of people in a valley. I wrote this note about it.
I can have such raw wild emotional experience on stage, a sort of flow state euphoria, in which I often end up crying. Then I walk off and the promoter is standing there, sober and awkward, and I have to sort of tumble back to reality, to remembering how to talk sensibly about the sound and the crowd and such things, yeah I really enjoyed myself I say, me head still spinning. Enjoyment doesn’t come close.
One day, I will try and write about what goes through my head on stage. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to articulate it but I should try. I can tell you that the feeling I had on that stage and meeting the hare in the field last night were the best things to happen to me this week.
Speaking of writing, I said to T the other day, I have no thoughts and ideas. I feel blank. My novel The Fox is out there with authors to read over the Summer and there is currently zero inspiration for anything new. My gigs are finished for a few weeks. I welcome this time, to be blank, to reset, to decompress, to play charades and commune with the hares.
I hope you are able to have a break this Summer. I hope that all the layers of a stressful life can fall away for a brief moment or two. These last few months have been intense in so many ways. I hope you get an opportunity to laugh with your loved ones, to read a good book, and to feel small in the elements, whether its a field or a beach or a park. Thank you as ever, for subscribing to Changes. Look out for the Donal Ryan interview in a few weeks.
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