Of course there are compensations for living in a flat during the lockdown. Aside from the fact that we have the allotment, there are two quite different vistas from the windows on the north and south sides of the building. From my study window I look out on the backs of a row of Georgian buildings; they’re mostly flats but there are Airbnb lettings and a burger takeaway too. Down in the car park we can see who’s in and who’s out. On warm summer evenings there are often improvised shibeens among the students and hen parties; and standing down in the yard we can often pick up the aroma of Caribbean cooking from our neighbour’s house. It’s a typical city kind of landscape; yesterday a pair of gulls were mating on the rooftop opposite – more noise to come no doubt. In more normal times a stream of cars and buses grind noisily down the road beyond.
We sleep at the back, and last night the shutters kept blowing open as the northeast wind increased, moaning and snuffling at the gap in the window. The shutters have never done that before and the first time it happened was an eerie experience – they didn’t swing open with a crash, they creaked open – quite noisily – and light flooded into the bedroom. The security lights in the yard are so sensitive they’re triggered by the least mote of dust and so at night they’re on pretty much all the time. That doesn’t trouble me any more than the extractor fan on the burger bar that goes on until three – they’re the comforting sounds of being at home. Very (very) occasionally a tawny owl joins in the fun, and gulls seem to do gullish murmerings at any hour of the night. But the unexpectedness of the shutters creaking open in the wind did wake me up – it was all very ghost train.
Out at the front, on the green this morning it was quiet. Normally it would be populated by gossiping dog walkers, joggers and cyclists on their way to work but today it was quite empty apart from a lone young man in the centre doing what I initially thought was a variant of Tai Chi. I was fascinated by the way he seemed to take possession of the space – it’s a bit of an amphitheatre, which is why it’s so good for people-watching. The wind continued unabated and young leaves were straining at their attachments. Even in the relatively short grass I could see ripples of energy travelling across in what seemed to be the opposite direction to the wind.
The young man’s practice was both gathered and fierce. One lone dog walker appeared and seemed to be implicitly directed to take a distant loop around him, even the dog gave him a wide berth. There were very slow movements as he seemed to rotate, taking in a 360 degree view of his position, and then there were positions that suggested drawing a bow, followed by a flicking of the wrists and fingers that projected a tangible energy outwards. Sometimes you get the feeling that there’s a degree of grandstanding going on with these outdoor exercisers, but not here. I stood there watching him, pretty much transfixed, for half an hour before he walked slowly back to his building entrance leaving me with a hundred unanswered questions. I must try to find out what he was up to.
Meanwhile the forecast is for frost over the next two nights and so we went up to the allotment to wrap in fleece anything that might be susceptible. Gardening is always something of a gamble and going for very early crops always runs the risk of a wipeout by a late frost – the rewards on the other hand are considerable and we usually take a risk but keep some reserves in the warm, just in case. The last recorded frost for our area is May 6th and on one occasion we were truly burned for a frivolous attempt to get the first runner beans on the site by a frost on that date. However, we were able to replace the brown and shrivelled ones with healthy replacements from the greenhouse (much to the amazement of our neighbours) and all was well in the end. I set the last two supports for the cordon tomatoes in place, but they won’t be needed for another month yet. The allotment now looks like the setting for a zombie movie –
Back at the Potwell Inn I’ve been continuing with Patience Gray, and here’s a couple of quotations from the introduction to “Fasting and Feasting” that may explain why I hold her writing in such high esteem.
Once we lose touch with the spendthrift aspect of nature’s provisions epitomized in the raising of a crop, we are in danger of losing touch with life itself. When Providence supplies the means, the preparation and sharing of food takes on a sacred aspect. The fact that every crop is of a short duration promotes a spirit of making the best of it while it lasts and conserving part of it for future use. It also leads to periods of fasting and periods of feasting, which represent the extremes of the artist’s situation as well as the Greek Orthodox approach to food and the Catholic insistence on fasting, now abandoned.
Patience Gray lived in Tuscany, Catalonia, Naxos and Puglia with the sculptor Norman Monnens who, rather like Madame, is never named in the book but referred to as “the sculptor. She was herself an artist in jewellery as well as one of the finest food writers (and spiritual guides) of her generation.
