Last February Weeks in Cornwall

There seems to be a steady stream of bright young hopefuls still moving down to Cornwall. A bit more sussed than the Summer of Lovites, in the sixties.  They come with skills, experience and education from various cities and places in the UK, trying their hand at surviving in the country by the sea and the ones I’m meeting seem friendly and open.

Paul Gillard and Joana work on internet based projects. He does computer graphics, she sells stuff and dispatches it all over the place. On her website she has paintings and jewellery, under the name of Joana Poore. Then yesterday a couple picked me up in a fancy black car, the guy with a kind of cowboy hat on as I was walking up the road to get the 1a bus. They are trying to set up as Tai Chi practitioners.  I wished them all the best. Couldn’t help think of Taos and how many people seduced by the beauty and just have to come and live there and so destroy the beauty. Or am I being too cynical?

 I end up in St Just in a bus shelter talking to other grateful Freedom Pass holders. It’s a bit bleak over there.  I cannot help thinking, do I look the same as them?? Am I old now? The couple that picked me up’s daughter goes to school at St Leven school. Kids come from all over to the little school. It’s peculiar in that it looks actually like a large school but there are not many people living around it. Of course, people bring their kids in cars. Even so, when it was built there weren’t that many cars and you wonder how kids got there. Of course from Treen they would use the Public footpath, which is now blocked and covered with mud, gloop and excremement at Ruben’s Mutant Farm that nobody can pass through unless they are wearing fishing waders.  It is impassable which probably is what is intended. Kids would go along that path straight to the school at Crean in days gone by. I would imagine they would come from other directions also, converging on the school at the centre of the footpaths and bridle paths around here connecting places like a spider’s web matrix. Now it’s all road traffic. And cars always seem blind to me like the Orcs in Lord of the Rings. Powerful but visionless.

 I found another path the other day from Sparnon,  BillyChapple’s house, to Crean Bottoms, across the fields and a stone stile and along the tops.  Makes it a lot quicker. The path up to Tresidder used to be the main route, big enough for animals, carts and so on, which people used as their road until ‘tarmac’ roads were built. I am slowly discovering the web of old pathways. I love to think that I am walking on the same places as people have walked for 7,000 years, from Mesolithic times if I have my Archeology right.

After several days indoors I got out finally for a hike in bright cold weather, sun out, all bundled up hardly able to move my arms in my coat wearing two fleeces underneath. You could say I don’t like getting cold. Felt loathsomely lazy and unmotivated this am, yes and laggardly.

Saturday 4^th February 2012

A nice cliffside walk but weather got very stormy and not so many seaside walks now with so much rain and wind and proper cold weather has hit finally. Up country a lot of snow is falling. Icy puddles frozen over, funny globby patterns appear in the ice, where air is trapped underneath. Jack Frost is here powdering the bushes with white crystals until it eventually melts as the day gets warmer. Last year we had weeks of this kind of weather.  Outside the barn today many vehicles are going past, splish splosh ing along the muddy track up to the Val Bakers place. I was invited to a party there but didn’t want to walk up in the dark and mud.  I would probably have ended up in the ditch at the side of the road. They can certainly raise a party. Stephen Val Baker asked me.  Genevieve Val Baker has gone away for a week to Morocco.  I saw Stephen the day after and he was very hungover, getting too old for that kind of caper. Maureen who I saw in town yesterday says Genevieve needs a break, Jess 88 the Val Baker matriarch,  apparently ruling over them still. Seems Jess is not so domesticated for want of a better word and the result? A place that needs a man to sort it all out, although it goes against all my instincts to say that.  Junk and clutter everywhere, in such a beautiful setting and squalid and dirty and no one taking care and maybe that is some kind of a feminine function that the liberated Jess doesn’t like doing, a kind of neglect even though there are all these amazing things there. I got shown round Genevieve’s pole house that Stephen built on poles as the ground was bumpy. Beautiful place and he obviously is very skilled.  Great idea, got burned once, they got insurance money and rebuilt.  It is very nice but dirty and uncared for inside. Typical kind of a hippy look to it. Just a couple of hours cleaning would totally change it. According to Stephen, the males were put down and poor Dennis died young.  Perhaps a kind of misguided feminism.

 Stephen says with a baleful face that he just goes along with things, with all the women bossing him around and said it doesn’t bother him.  About ten black and white ducks, white ducks and hens and a timid cockerel wander around freely. I guess cockerels have a job to do and timidity isn’t going to much use to that end. Which reminds me, I saw one of those facebook videos of a rabbit chasing round about ten sheep, so easily upset and terrified. The collie was just sitting watching and this rabbit was going apeshit, you wonder if it’s real though, whether it was done by computer graphics or something like that

Bumped into Karen or Rachel on the cliffs above Pedn Vounder, who was home educating and a vegetarian, another new arrival in Buryan, moaning about her sister who wanted to cut her son’s hair when they visited them in London. So much for being in the bosom of the family.  She had a good vent and then we walked together up to Penberth and onto the road and went our separate ways. She was actually going to take the public path to Buryan, I thought I was the only one!  I was late for the market last week and today didn’t get a Guardian, but I dam well will go and get The Observer tomorrow. Anything I want or need I have to walk at least four miles to get it but I kind of find that satisfying, if time consuming.

In faceboook land a lot of activity around Gemma Ra Star in Taos and Horse caravans in South America with Nomads Reunited. A very appealing way of spending time . They travel round like a circus and visit villages and so on. Then Bea posted about  Horse stuff in Mongolia with Julia Roberts. Then a girl called Mandy Blann about renting Treglyn. She wants to stay at Treglyn for a while. Mandy tells me how she used to ride horses on the South Downs and go to villages and anywhere she wanted when she was young and her parents let her do it and people would give her cake and cups of tea. She wants to come down to Cornwall and gave me a special meditation to do at Logan Rock. I think it’s a meditation just being there but the meditation bit or at least the closing of the eyes does help to ‘tune’ in to the landscape and the energy of it. Just by closing one’s eyes you feel a wonderful world inside and it does feel so peaceful in there.

                I had an interesting experience yesterday. I was late as usual, getting the 1pm bus from Buryan to P Z. I was coming up to the gravel pit and thought I’ll close my eyes, ask, open up and reach up higher, I hate to say that higher thing but I tried to open up my head beyond all thoughts and worry and negativity that seems to get in the way of bringing in positive energy through the top of the head. I asked for a friend to come along or someone because I needed help to get to town to take care of my basic reality, that is, financial situation. I had an appointment at Nationwide. As I turned round I saw a car, a taxi in fact and cheekily put out my thumb for a lift. He stopped. Took me to Buryan and we were having a nice chat, he used to drive for National Express all night from PZ to Victoria, can you imagine it, what amazing guys there are around who will work so hard at things, I suppose that is male honour.  He said sometimes you have to be cheeky to get anywhere and smiled.

I saw several buzzards, a sparrowhawk and a youngster sitting in a tree, not sure what sort and my first Dunnocks, that look like sparrows but are bigger and stripier with a patch of grey. I Saw a flock of birds with black tipped bodies, white belly and sort of dark brown coloured wings but I couldn’t id them. Also on my way to Buryan I saw a fox trotting through Lord Falmouth’s or Lord Trengothal’s    land, with a large, white tipped tail, he didn’t hang around to say hello. I think a male.  If they are still hunted they probably don’t let humans get too close. I don’t know what I think about foxes. People say they kill all your chickens, whereas someone else might say the chickens just have a heart attack and drop dead. I don’t know if the fox just takes one of them or whether as some people say they kill for the sake of it. Somehow I doubt that. I met someone called Andrew who lives next to Jeanette in Crean near where I think Julia lives. I saw the ‘hunt’ gathering in St Buryan twice this winter. I believe both ‘drag’ hunts or at least that’s what the hunters say. I cannot help but be impressed and excited by this rite. The horses are outstandingly beautiful, with plaited main and tail, eyes and ears flicking everywhere as they get excited at the prospect of galloping and chasing across the fields. They probably get very bored standing around in fields and stables. They are bred for this and most are at least sixteen hands high and very strong and powerful. I spoke to several of the people I’m sorry to say in a fawning kind of a way. They were very friendly and not snotty. But how can you not feel superior all dressed in immaculate hunting gear, whiter than white cravat, 22 carat gold pin, beautiful boots, old fashioned black velvet  riding hats, hair in a net, impeccably and gorgeously turned out in traditional costume but the highlight is the five or six men in red jackets. You have to be invited. The red is so unbelievably blood coloured and the men so proud. The master of the hounds has his dogs well trained and they come to his commands. The master is a big square built Cornish farmer, the sort that make good rugby players. The sort that you would want to be on your side in a battle.  He looked red faced and robust to match his jacket. While I stood around gawping he actually blew on his horn!! Unbelievably the dogs responded and gathered close around him and off the whole entourage moved southwards out of St Buryan, all rising very well, to the trot. There was a mixture of followers. Two small children about nine or ten on their gallant ponies all ready for anything and as tough as old boot leather someone said. Good way to toughen up and have fun at the same time. I thought of these little tots jumping hedges and fences. Can they do that? Or do they go round? The logistics of galloping across fields fazes me somewhat. How do they do it? I walked after them and saw two red jackets gazing across the fields watching the hunt progress in the distance just outside Pendrea. The chap told me that he was there to prevent the hounds from crossing the road and I suppose going the wrong way. I walked into the field and several people were standing and watching and I chatted to them briefly. One of the older men looked pretty hostile towards me as if he thought I was an anti hunt protestor. I don’t know the full story so what could I say. I was just friendly and smiled. I saw various groups about a mile away going along the edges of a couple of fields and realized that probably for the most part it is exciting but a lot of time would be spent on simply trying to find the trail and trudging, albeit on horseback through fields and gates. I imagine the galloping bit would come when there was an actual chase on and I also imagine that would be highly exciting after several hours of searching. I have no idea how long an average hunt takes. They also only hunt during winter, probably because the fields would not be growing crops and so on and of course the foxes would be bringing up their young.  This winter I saw another badger ambling along close to the hedge at nighttime and sadly a dead one at the side of the road. Recently I heard that Wales is going to vaccinate rather than cull badgers. Hooray for Wales! Any wild animal needs all the help it can get.

I can’t help thinking again of what Bea Dobson said about ‘cultural experience.’ We were talking in the context of fine art and how she responds to different paintings. The paintings in question, being David Hockney’s recent exhibition of trees and landscape work.

“I've been trying to work out how to explain my use of the term 'devoid of cultural experience'. I can only 'hedge' around it by referring to the aborigines and their belief that they sang their world into existence. For them every inch of land has its particular story and is revered and refreshed through song, story, dance and art, all this at the appropriate times. Now I know I'm not an aborigine but I do have a sense of feeling for nature and an awe of what it holds. These 'Sunday painter', paintings of the Yorkshire landscapes give me no indication of what may be stored in the landscapes. 
They don't 'speak' to me......so there is no cultural experience there for me.” Quoted from Bea Dobson on facebook sometime in winter 2012.

 Now that I am attached to and very fond of this landscape and have been so for nearly forty years,  I understand what she means. It’s a relationship you develop in a way, a knowingness and in fact for me I sometimes feel closer to a landscape than I do to some friends. I relate to what she says with regard to Hockney’s  what I feel are perhaps ‘sterile’ paintings, despite their beautiful colour and subject matter. I will definitely have to visit the Royal Academy and see for myself and I must look up what Brian Sewell said in this regard also. Scathing I believe. I think Hockney goes so far but only so far and I think his work is clever, bright but for me lacks depth and in some cases any painterly understanding of trees for example and I do think it takes years to develop that kind of understanding or sympathy. And I might hesitatingly say that there perhaps is the lack of a spiritual, more feminine quality.

So I am talking to Mandy, who originally called about renting ‘Treglyn,’ the cottage next door. I. She is the goddess earth worshipper sort and is often called ‘Sprite’ as a nickname. Her email name is ‘Happy Primrose’ and in subsequent emails she addresses me as ‘Daisy’ which I find very endearing. My name of Margaret translates to Daisy or Pearl. She says her mother went into Wicca really young after having four children by the time she was 19. She does massage. She comes down this way for guidance and spiritual stuff. I know I am also drawn to places.  She told me about her Guardian Angel who has dark peacock coloured feathers, dark green and so on and she says there is a being at Logan Rock and tells me where.  Go to the dip, clamber up through rocks, left pathway looking towards Penberth Sit or stand, imagine feet having roots going down, tap roots going through the core, the vagina, deep deep down and wrapping around the rock and then bring white light of Universe down through the head a sparkly white light aura around me, then a blue light which stops other energies, Ask being for guidance and need inspiration. Bring out a blue cloak pull over head till cocooned. Wait and see. Give thanks and walk away.

Anyway I did get a small picture of a male person in my head with big blue sheltering wings around me and me feeling safe within the cocoon of feathers. The feeling that there was someone protecting me, probably the need I have of a real human like that, that I haven’t had since my dear ole mum died really, of being held safe, of someone saying they will be there for you always, just that ecstasy of being with someone who loves you and cares for you. What bliss it must be to sink into someone’s protective embrace, like coming home from war or a dangerous journey, leaning your head on their chest and hearing their warm beating heart that says over and over again, that you are not alone. Well to be honest it’s not so easy finding any place on earth today where you can be alone!  I also got a picture of a kind of an Egyptian woman with a cobra headdress that flashed through my head. I would love that cobra to protect me also. To actually go infront of me and prepare the way. I am not sure why they wore those possibly to represent the third inner eye. I am so used to seeing that image represented everywhere that it doesn’t look especially unusual or weird. When I came back from Logan Rock I was grounded and deeply relaxed and I felt good.

Tuesday 7^th February 2012

Yesterday evening turned out quite nice, no bad moods or words with C and a pleasant and convivial evening. I can get quite nervous with him. We chatted about this and that and watched the Queen and I read and so to bed as Samuel Pepys used to say, with regularity. I tried to clear all my stuff out of the way. Hard to know where I can actually sit and work. Will stay with Jo a couple of nights and then to flat. Then maybe over to France if I can fit it all in and of course be able to afford it.

Went for long walk with Richard Hindsbergh around Gulval, a nice little village with a central kind of area a very large pub and some kind of a community hall, an open area in the middle, a church and church yard right in the centre. I was spending a couple of days with him and Maureen at Gear Farm, Newmill before they took off to India for a couple of months. I believe they are going to Rajasthan.There are so many lovely places around that I’ve never been too, in coming down to Cornwall for 43 years and really it is shameful to be so stuck in the same little area. What Maureen calls the ‘bit at the end of the sock.’ It’s so refreshing to visit somewhere different

We went along a lot of bridle paths looking out towards St Michael’s Mount but you could see the road and hear the traffic so I didn’t think it was as beautiful as around Penberth. There was a lot of stuff between the fields and the sea but honestly where can you go these days without modernity being in your face. It was very bitingly cold but we warmed up as we gaily chatted and walked along. We’d picked up some wine and food and stuff from Tesco’s. Richard had already made a spinach curry with rice. We called in on Joe at Trader Gray’s old place. It’s being closed and Joe has to find another place to store and sell antiques and all that stuff Trader kept there. He was lucky to have that place for so long. He had some nice old chairs with upholstered blue velvet seats, obviously imitation antique but almost like Queen Anne chairs. They were fifty quid each but then costs of transport to London. Joe definately looks like Trader. Maureen tells me her Dad was quite posh and drove horses and so on and her mother was Irish and not so posh but probably very pretty.

Richard a bit more grumpy and more belly than he had but pretty healthy and robust and still chuckles and so on. We all talked rather a lot. Richard went to watch tele and Mo and I did some Yoga and I put my leg up and stretched and we spent quite a while in the kitchen doing ballet stretches and so on.  She was quite impressed by how high I could pitch my legs! She apparently did a lot of ballet and a lot of horse riding and actual hunting, the two things I adored as a child. Funny how the two things go together, the horses for confidence and fearlessness and rhythm and the dance for poise, strength, line, bodily beauty and the awareness of making yourself into a piece of art. I wonder if that was the intention.

Had a lovely room with a French bedstead and a view over to the sea and St Michael’s Mount. Imagine how it would have looked before cars and warehouses, urban sprawl and all that, just pastoral, clip clopping horses, traps, coaches, all seen from the windows of Gear Farm which stands higher up than Marazion. She’s always coming out with funny sayings that her Mum used to pronounce. All day it was fun and giggling and relaxed, they were so nice and then the next too and so kind of chaotic and disorganized although they both do a lot. Anyway I spent the morning darning three sweaters, Maureen found her sewing box with lots of old stuff in it, Richard was battling away online and I called up Nationwide or rather Legal and General about the Stocks and Shares ISA that Richard could not believe. We had gone to the Dock, which seems to be where everyone goes for Spingo beer these days. I think I went there with Jill for a birthday meal last year. I went with Richard and met the ex publican, and another of his mates whose Mum’s house was burgled and she is 91.

Strangely C and his crowd were in the corner with Jay/Jason and Moon and Jesse holding a pint of beer, he seems to have fallen quite happily back into the old beer routine. Chatted a lot about ISA’s and nobody would believe that I could make 30 quid in two months on 500 pounds or that in fact I could double my money in a year.

The house, bathroom and so on, are  beautifully decorated but there is a tile floor in the kitchen which is probably death to anything that falls on it.  I would have to put some rugs down there. Richard dropped me off in town and I got some food, went to Morrab Gardens, birds going crazy, spring on its way. I love the way you can see the sea from between palm trees in Morrab gardens and the way there are little alleyways running through Penzance that remind me of all the little  paths and bridle ways out in the countryside that people used in days gone by before proper roads put in. Shortcuts seem to be a Cornish speciality and it takes what Bea calls ‘cultural experience’ to get to know the paths as intimately as you get to know the back of your own hand. That kind of knowledge that the country people used to have is in great danger of being lost forever.

at that place where the barns were for sale in Gulval, there was a little pen with a big ewe and several little lambs about a week old, really tiny cute lambs already. So fluffy and white and a few other sheep were there and some fairly young calves I guess being kept inside until strong enough and the weather warmer. At least I hoped so.They seemed fine. The ewe looked very nervous at but the calves came forward as they probably think humans are going to give them some food. In a documentary I saw that evening, apparently animals recognize people who have harmed them  and run away. Bonobos can actually communicate what they want from a page of symbols for things and tell you want they want to do. There is an American research place where they keep them and its horrible, man made and the animals behave like fat, spoilt royalty but it was interesting to see this male bonobo peer anxiously through the opening to see who his guest was. Best bit of this programme was the horse, mustang bit with Monty Roberts and seeing the horses communicate in their EQUUS language. They nuzzle and use their mouths, tongues, ears and bodies to communicate and gesture. I’ve watched the horses in Reuben’s standing around and they spend ages nuzzling and standing close and just kind of bonding and commiserating with each other and somehow comforting each other in that awful  muddy place

Saturday 18^th February 2012

So ends the low tide, new moon week (which is kind of like no moon as you don’t see the new moon crescent for quite a while and quite a busy outdoor week therefore. One day taking in the low tide beach near Pedn, a long hike from Land’s End with Paul Gillard, a walk up to Boscawen Un stone circle from St Buryan and today a walk up to St Buryan for the Graun. The hunt was out again. The same Master of the Hunt as last time, he blew on his horn and all the dogs rallied to the call and followed his horse and did what he said. I chatted to one man who was ‘bringing up the rear’, and his horse 16 hands was called ‘Woody’ a gorgeously well behaved horse who smelled me but didn’t bite, clipped and very very alert about what was going. Anita George Publican of The Logan Rock was there, her son Nicholas is the Publican of the St Buryan pub.Ann and John Mackie were there. I got my bits and bobs from the shop and post office and started walking briskly as a storm was sweeping in, with a lot of mist from the North , coming in across the sea just like yesterday. Another man was standing on his horse ‘Sethi’ on the road keeping a look out for the hounds. His horse was also very alert and eyes and ears going all over the place. Very well behaved and very excited,

The walk to the circle yesterday was great. I went round to Cassandra’s to check on directions and to ask why they hadn’t returned my email. Cassandra said they had sent three.  I was doing well following the markers when there were two ways to go next to a yellow arrow. I went straight on but should have veered to the left. With the result that I got to the Ash Grove too soon and not where the path was. I followed what I thought was the trail but got stuck, as usual in the brambles and overgrown tangled up trees and stuff near the stream where it is marshy and fun for kids but my hair got all caught up in twigs and I felt like Gulliver. I battled on but not before I got whacked right on the face and nose by a bloody branch. I yelled and screamed and then carried on. Eventually I got to the little kind of bridge thing and was on the right track Yay!! I went up along the green path through the bracken and overgrown whatever and I was getting further towards the heathland where these places often are, kind of at the highest points in the area. To the left you could see a few craggy rocks jutting out which I’ve seen before and a couple of the fields to the left had large boulders in a line in them. One wonders if they hadn’t been especially put there to mark the circle.

Always the circle appears when I least expect it, it looms, appears and I never see it before I get there it is so well hidden in the tangle of bramble, hedgerow and so on. There seem to be a couple of small hawthorn or blackberry bushes there I hadn’t noticed before. I walked around anti clockwise. Two young girls there, I just smiled, so did they. I walked round, didn’t speak and went straight to the white quartz stone and looked at all the huge crystals in it. One wonders how on earth it was moved here and for what purpose. Crystals are natural amplifiers, so perhaps to amplify. It is opposite the large pointed phallic stone in the middle and there are twenty stones including the quartz one and two smaller ones at the entrance. I don’t honestly know about the placement. I love the way the grass is all soft and worn down and mowed by people walking on it and no weeds or brambles in the area. I keep thinking of fairy tales of brambles and tangled bushes that fairies and princesses get stuck in and prick their fingers on.

I spoke briefly to one of the women. They went. I sat next to the white quartz stone and closed my eyes. I have mainly an energetic response. I haven’t seen any ‘angels’and haven’t actually asked to. I might ask that I be given guidance and inspiration or visions that I need for my journey or something like that.  I wonder if these ‘vision’s are actually projections of the unconscious to be honest. I was very impressed visually especially of the white quartz stone and was interested in all the detail of it, like an abstract painting.

Then I walked back and saw a girl with two dogs and asked her the proper way. She was really sweet and told me about the bridge and markers. I could see a figure silhouetted in the distance in a dip in the hedgerow, a square shape with a head shape and obviously it was a man looking through after the little girl. I wondered why he didn’t come for the walk with them. I followed the path and came to the dip in the hedgerow, which apparently was because of horses jumping through in the last hunt, in November I think it was, they run from September to March .The man in the dip was the girl’s father a good looking outdoor chap with one of those recreational bike/car thingies. He was typical Cornish, said he had plenty of fresh air in his job and didn’t need the walk and that he and kids had been out horse riding that morning already. Kind of put me in my place. Not many smiles but obviously we all humans love a chat about this and that and it passes the time. Quite a young man, curmudgeonly already, annoyed with anyone who doesn’t know the lie of the land like he does and probably judgmental about me probably visiting the circle, ‘all them ‘hippy types.’ Why are farmers so gruff in such beautiful places? He should have been all happy and smiling. I thought he looked funny from a distance obviously making sure his little girl was ok. She was very nice and polite and well behaved. But it’s a hard life being a Farmer they say but they mostly seem to be grumpy at all times. And so got back to Crean Bottoms.

Thursday 16^th a walk with Paul Gillard. Jo dropped us off at Land’s End and would pick us up at the end. It was another gorgeous day and I wasn’t familiar with this stretch of coast line. Very bulbous and characterful boulders decorating the headlands and a lot of erosion of sandstone I think and a lot of sand dumped on this side of the coast this year. I have got to know the stretch of coastline from St Loy and Lamora all the way to Land’s End, Sennen, Gwenvar, St Just, Pendeen and Trewellard, St Ives and Zennor rather well.

We scrambled quite close to the edge and came to some rocky ledges where the seals like to bask and fish. We saw five altogether, a  pair hunting, and several quite large looking ones cruising from Land’s End to Nanjizel and sometimes up to the cove at Penberth to do a bit of fishing, usually when the tide is coming in as it shakes up the sand on the bottom and the sea bass can find shrimp and so on released from the safety of the sandy bed.

I spotted my first properly identified Stone chat actually sitting on a stone looking at us and posing and I swear the seals were looking up at us with curiosity about what we were doing but were trusting enough not to think that Paul’s massive telephoto lens and monopod weren’t agents of death. Such a similarity between ‘shooting’ guns and shooting film. And paparazzi being labeled a pack of hounds chasing stars and so on is very aggressive actually but only because the public want that and will pay to see the photos, just like the drugs trade. Is it the chicken or the egg that comes first?

Walked happily along several new paths, Jo picked us up and we went to eat, but the place we were going to was closed. I don’t know how they expected to eat lunch when we started out so late anyway. They took ages to get here and I walked up to meet them on School Hill. I don’t know but after several hours in the wind I get damn hungry although when we found a chip shop in Sennen, it wasn’t the best fish I’d ever had but hunger will do that to you. Locals go to another place. You live and learn. Could have gone to the Minack. I was a bit awkward as I didn’t just want tea, but should have just gone along with it and not been so bossy.

Paul quite funny and we were both taking a lot of pictures.

I went on Wednesday along the cliffs to Logan Rock and had a good feast of my favourite bit of sea and coast. A good drop of sand at Green Bay, almost as large as Porthcurno. I walked to the left on the rock and there was a place where someone had had a fire earlier which might have been the place where Mandy  Blann goes, also known as ‘sprite.’ I sat down to a meditation and got grounded and energetically it was good. I think its doing me good. Through these low tide days my energy level has been good, I’ve been positive and then  one night my mind raced like a film show of all the beautiful places I know and have imprinted on my brain and I was looking at them in my mind’s eye like a fast moving documentary show as if the images were embedding in my brain and mind and helping to make new wiring and healing and the beauty was washing through my brain and mind’s eye and staying there to show me how fantastic life is or something. How lucky I am to have the freedom and time to bathe my eyes and brain in such a wonder of nature. I will try and show it to others. I have been drinking it all in a lot this week as the weather has been quite good and I will be leaving for London very shortly andat this rate I will want to stay another night but I bet C will make me pay a lot.

He apparently first came down age ten to St Just, I think through his Grandfather or Father’s work as an engineer. Moved about a lot but then went to boarding school at 8 and went to Africa also. Quite an unsettled childhood but obviously has lived in Cornwall most of his life although he doesn’t sound in the remotest sense Cornish and no accent has rubbed off. I met his mum and brother and wife this week. He takes after his mother, who is 88 and very intact and lovely complexion and beautiful thick curly white hair and probably a beauty when young. Such a difference in how well cared for she is and my own mother,  who had a strong spirit but physically wore herself out. I guess she taught me a lesson in compassion but too late although I did my best, I really did. Why am I so in love with her even now and my dad too, probably because they put up with me for so long? I love them so much and when mum said you never get over your parents I know what she means, I wonder if she ever regretted anything? Is it Catholic guilt? But I do have some good times and images. Julie said that my family probably hates me because I’m free. Really? Are they jealous

Julie said many things to me. I went over to hers when I was distraught. She said I could have a room there and was very kind. She popped over yesterday and I had biscuits and chocolate and made a nice fire but I was a bit agitated about C coming back and minute. She said she could handle Charlie, she goes a bit gee gaw and giggly around him. Why do women do that? I suppose its lack of male energy. Funny because Fiona who is house sitting at Tresidder went like that when Stephen VB and I were walking past. And invited us in and told us all sorts when she had been quite closed with me and gave him a pair of wellies. I suppose she trusted me by then and I kind of guaranteed that he was alright more or less. People here weird about being seen with someone as the news gets round. Even John Mackay said when I got out of his car in Buryan that everyone would see and wonder who this woman, me was and it would get back to Anne. I don’t suppose she cares that much.

F. Her son and family is staying at hers. Good job I’m not there or he wouldn’t have been able to visit. I may try and go down there tomorrow and take Jaqueline’s torch back. She called and C sounded bossy and she put the phone down on him. I think there are little adjustments and changes he might make now but never admits to any mistakes and he always puts blame on others, holds himself above everyone.

Set off to walk to Penberth but saw Julie and wanted to say goodbye and thanks and she whisked me off to Sennen to the First and Last for lunch, more beef. No walk on beach just inside stuff. She just didn’t even ask if I wanted that kind of food, just said let’s go to lunch and offered to pay. It was nice but a bit heavy.  Would have liked to walk a bit. She is very pale for someone living so close to such stunning coastal scenery. She was going off to a sacred well or stream to get water and when I got home later she had left me a nice big bottle of stream water, really sweet. I walked along the cliffs bumped into Scratch and we walked back to the white house in Treen. He showed me inside his ‘gaff’. Lovely and warm with an aga, nice couch and lovely views, all free,  lucky guy. Nicer inside than seeing it on the outside, belongs to Ann who was married to a Swiss. Saw Adele’s husband in there before maybe he was checking it when they lived next to John Mackie or whatever his name is. I walked down through the woods to Penberth and up to see if Nathan still there, but not. All very spic and span inside.

Then down to see Jaqueline. She was talking to Vicky with the two kids but the kids looked a bit bored and tired. I chatted to Vicky also said I was looking for a house sit or whatever next winter.  She said Julia Bryant and hubby often have house sitters and are in Africa for the winter. But how do I get in touch. I stupidly said isn’t she a bit demanding or scary? She had after all thrown out S and made it difficult for J to move into a National Trust cottage, according to J. I don’t think V is so bright anyway, but I guess I could send them a card or something. How do I get in touch with them? Send a  note with my address and email on I suppose. Worth a try. Did meet Mr Bryant briefly. F later told me they were arrogant and capricious and to keep a wide berth of them.

Then J offers me more spag bol and I have a big pan of it at Crean also. So much beef. We talk and chat and have a glass of wine, I feel a bit uncomfortable. Not easy as she is deaf and doesn’t listen or hear much of what you say or answer but I try to have a conversation as I think she is nice and probably enjoys it and as she says she doesn’t have many friends and doesn’t trust people although she is happy to chat, has a sister and some nieces she chats to regularly. I walk back in the beautiful dark night with tons of stars everywhere. It’s wonderful and then I find the lovely water that Julia left. I’ve a good mind to ask her if she’s going into PZ tomorrow. I get in Jesse is here and they are watching the Sopranos.

Then out of the blue C says would I mind cleaning some smelly stuff out of the fridge, emphasizing smelly.  I say why do you assume the smelly stuff is mine? I have cleaned that fridge more times than he’s had hot dinners but of course I don’t say anything about that. What a stupid time to say that. I say he is rude and that it’s not appropriate to talk like that to me infront of Jesse, who promptly leaves Jesse is the son of the American Academic lady next door. He says his usual rant, how I am a pain, how he wants to punch me, I say I would punch you back and probably I am stronger than he is. I throw my spag bol away and root through the fridge and there is nothing there.  After a while I say ‘Are you happy now?’ He was swearing and shouting about nothing. It’s like he has to moan about something. He squeezes every last drop of life out of you. It’s like he just has to keep demanding, attacking, being rude, talking about ‘dirty girls’ and so on and is wildly inappropriate and out of order. I am going to ask Julia if she is going to PZ tomorrow and maybe just get a taxi on Tuesday. He offered to give me a lift. I don’t want anything from him, fuck him, must allow the universe to decide the result and not get revenge. I have to get money, more money, he never stops, he would hardly let me see the phone bill, he is so controlling. Take books back, take stuff to charity shop. Maybe go on the 3pm bus after cleaned house and so on and call Julia if I have her number anywhere still.  I am gripped by siege mentality. Some people are never satisfied till they see your corpse drained of blood.

I am glad I kept my centre and didn’t feel attacked. Meanwhile they are watching the Sopranos where a women heals the gangster with the over masculine attitude and there is C and J watching it and C leading J down the road of woman hating when in fact it is up to him to make friends and break away from his Mother if that is his problem.  It is so nice here when C is out!!

Haven’t done a blog since C got back or written or worked. It is not always a good environment for me. Managed a few watercolours. Didn’t like Lucian Freud film much. He reminded me of Dracula with his mad wild white face and strange deranged eyes that look like they have just seen the Devil himself. All those empty victim women who got even more emptied out by him. It’s like the Universe gave them themselves multiplied. Did he live off their energy as well as their bodies? Very strange man, but became super rich. Same old, flesh, genitals, blotchy skin, untouched by sunlight, pink round the edges, very white and lardy looking, speaking of mortality, such depressing art like Stanley Spencer, Damian Hurst, Francis Bacon, horrible, ugly, tortured, why is this considered the best of British? Is it a Death of the masculinist phase? I  prefer the French Impressionists , who portrayed life just as well. When I first got up to London I was with Jo in the garden of the Kalendar café and who should be there but one of his models, one of the last ones, a small, upright, painfully natural and simple, voice like cut glass who is a painter in her own right. It’s true she looks a bit ‘touched’ like some kind of tragic Victorian heroine and very petite. He said he thought the women had this ‘empty space’ and thought he could fill it duh!! How Freudian is that? He had sixteen children. How did he manage that, did he refuse birth control? Couldn’t they go on the pill or use the cap? Very articulate models and girlfriends nevertheless.

Often the case that artist’s took models off the street and screwed them but actually a well spoken and educated woman would make a far more interesting companion in the studio than an illiterate whore I guess. Though I’ve never met one and probably there are upper class women who are far more ‘whorish’ than poor women desperate for money to feed a child.

Tuesday 28^th February 2012 London

I came back to London on 25^th February, fully expecting a huge dose of painful and scary reality. Well I’m having some dreamy days also as I do have the consolation of my own bed and am sleeping rather well. Yesterday dull and grey and depressing and I took my documents down to the Neighbourhood office for Housing Benefit, enough said. There is an awful lot of work to do here. Most of the flat will have to be re-painted, a lot of cleaning, unpacking, finding things, endless dusting, two cupboards and a shed to sort out, windows to clean, garden in a total mess, the grass is full of moss and almost impossible for anything to grow plus two years of leaves and nobody doing anything at all except fucking around with stupid window boxes, which I think Lucy does to keep Ushy or whatever that old bitch’s name is with the old double barreled snobby name related to royalty or whatever. Same people here as for about 15 years now and probably we will all end up old and lonely here but at least you do see people coming in and out and say hello and we can probably look out for each other too.  Poor Lucy and Karen will be the youngest ones while the rest of us grow old. What is it about this house that has attracted so many single blonde females, on my side all Pisceans too! And I’m the only one who doesn’t dye their hair!!

Today nice, got the windows done. I haven’t done the blog, or book or paint for ages but am ready. First I have to take care of this place. Went to Literary café and felt so relaxed and enjoyed it being there whereas before I’ve been very uptight and critical and short tempered and worried about money. Am I really a progressed Libra ascendant now? If so it feels bloody marvelous. I’m tired, I’m going to bed. I’m in a different world now, so far from Penberth, Truro and Crean. Maybe F will invite me down for a week. She is very wise about not seeing a lot of people and just walking and chilling, does you far more good. I hope I can have another week or two in Cornwall before I go back to Taos

Must have spoken to about ten people today who went past as I was cleaning the windows, I should have filmed them all, it was kind of a gathering of goddesses of the hearth, all celebrating Spring and cleaning and removing the dirt so the light can get in. A sacred act.

No blogging since C got back at beginning of February, so much for being in an inspiring and creative environment with an inspiring and creative person. I am fascinated still by the attitude to the ‘other’ that so called creatives have, particularly males towards females. Unless you were the Queen or Margaret Thatcher you will get no respect from him.

21^st March 2012

My 62^nd birthday came and went. I was pleasantly surprised that Peter Connor’s son Frankie and his girlfriend is now living at Peter’s old flat next door.  (Peter was very kind when my Mum died and he had also lost his wife so we commiserated). I met Jane again, Peter’s daughter,  we will try and visit Peter and Dee’s graves in Highgate Cemetery. Jane must be a bit of a fighter as she also managed to keep Peter’s flat for her son. Good to have some continuity. Also bumped into Geraldine playing tennis at Parliament Hill, haven’t seen her for years.

After the first couple of weeks back I began to relax a bit and am enjoying walking on the Heath again and getting re-acquainted with the lovely oak and beech copses. Thank god I feel some connection to nature there, but it still is a shock after spending four months in Cornwall. Researching ancient history in this area turns up some outstanding information such as there were Mesolithic settlers that came here over 7,000 years ago probably from the Siberian Steppes region and Iberian people also. I discover the link between our culture and the Native American one and how the Roman and Norman invasions destroyed our ancient ways and worship of nature and the earth. But the old sacred places are still there, underneath in London, all over the west of England and they cannot be destroyed. I am very interested in the Druids that came later and their practice of ‘teaching’ outdoors underneath oak trees.

For that is where I went when I was grieving. The land is the link to our ancestors. In my case I connected with ‘the land’ in a way to connect somehow to my Mother when she died. Or at least it was the only place where I felt safe or free from fear, or that gave me what I desperately needed at that time and still do. I became so conscious of my need and dependence on ‘nature’ as a salve and healing balm after my Mother died. Perhaps that was where her spirit had now gone. And I was led to beautiful places and connected to the huge spirit of the planet after the loss or even because of the loss.  It makes me wonder if my friend John Nichols developed his special love for nature and all its pristine grace through the loss of his mother when he was so young and tender.  And if he found a perfect virgin purity in the white frozen snow in winter and the sacredness of water,  finding a new mother in the land all around him and that that is why he is so terrified about what we are doing to the planet, that he will lose his mother all over again. The mother of all of us.