This picture, taken in Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy, is how I feel right now. Its 3 in the morning and I have been awake for a couple of hours, sleep has abandoned me and instead a list as long as my arm regarding work to do lurks hauntingly behind the bedroom door. So I am up, drinking early grey and trying to clear a space in my head. I guess by the time I clear the decks a little, drink my tea and then have a shower, driving into Winchester won't be such a chore. Strangely, I don't feel tired though I guess it'll hit me around 2 this afternoon. But at Least I sorted my diary for the next week or so before settling down to write this. I will be popping up to Edinburgh this week to see my dad. I'm really looking forward to seeing him. And its curious that thought of going back because one of my earliest memories was 'digging to Australia' on Gullane beach. My dad had told me if I kept digging that's where I would end up. And my most recent publication was a prose poem on the topic, which I guess no one will mind if I reprint it here:
He was digging down, all the
way to Australia, it can’t be worse than here, he thought; the quartz sand gave
way to crushed sea shell, fossiliferous shale and strata of sedimentary rock,
an outcrop of Upper Ordovician limestone halted his progress momentarily; and
then drifting in, on an offshore breeze, he could hear the dreams and strange
songlines that were etched in the coal seams, nouns like vistas, rivers of
sayings, stories as ancient as the earth; the tide reached back up the beach
and filled the hole he had dug, tomorrow he would begin again, perhaps not
quite so close to the sea...
Somehow this song fits the bill, if you ever catch me with a guitar I could play it for you - happy Monday, is it that time already, goodness it'll soon be December.
