Stories that make sense
It is a decade, more or less, since I decided that if I was moving to Cambridge then I really needed to learn (again) to ride a proper bike. I achieved this by riding one round and round Woking park. Now I am doing the same thing, round and round, trying to get used to the cargo bike. (It really helps, I have found, not to think about how huge it is out front.)
I’ve written before about the multiplicity of angles that Ely cathedral manages to present. I rather like this one, with the march of the wheelie bins and the huddle of hoarding, and the towers rising serenely behind. This is a real place, and real things happen here.
It’s a miserable grey day. We dodged the rain but the sky is still gloomy. But there’s plenty of colour underfoot. It’s a question of perspective.
I’m wondering at the moment whether I’m capable of worrying less, of resisting my tendency to let fear for what might be suck the joy out of what is. There is a lot of exploring to do.
The west front of the cathedral has been hidden behind scaffolding for most of this year. But just this week it’s emerged again, with the porch looking very new and clean. Just in time for next week’s baptism service. (Also, of course, Remembrance Sunday and the Christmas fair, but I’m less interested in those!)
I passed this wall as I walked home this afternoon, and had to stop to take a second look. I could say something about how the temporal and the eternal are all mixed up together. I could say something about having to be willing to let go in order to produce something really spectacular. But actually I just thought it was beautiful.
I’m finding things a little difficult at the moment. No sooner did the baby concede to sitting in a bouncy chair so I could get on with doing things than I slipped getting out of the shower and bashed my knee and had to spend three days in bed and two weeks on the sofa. No sooner did my knee get back to normal than the dark closed in. Still, things are generally not as bad as all that, and all over my home town people are decorating their windows to remind me of it. None more so than this.
Today the sky is very blue and the grass is very green and the sunlight is making everything 25% more beautiful than it was before. And compared to yesterday, which was a day of wind and drizzle, it’s at least 200% more beautiful.
This skirt has a deadline: two weeks and a bit from now. There is still quite a lot of hemming to do, in limited sewing time. It’s very tempting, though, to add more decoration. It’s a question of balance.
Sunset on All Saints’ Day, and I find myself singing The golden evening brightens in the west. Although this year We feebly struggle/ They in glory shine seems more like where I’m at, and apart from all the leaves the photo is saying sempiternal though sodden towards sundown three months early.
I’ve been feeling somewhat adrift from the seasons this year. My calendar emptied out after mid June, and you can never quite believe the weather these days. The garden is running wild with most of the fruit unpicked. Suddenly it’s November. But I got out into the golden evening on All Saints’ Day, and that’s something.
But now I’m in my own house, listening to water dripping off the pram onto the floor. The great advantage is that I know where the kettle is here.
Kathleen Jowitt 