Blood Gift Chronicles is now a hashtag and edits for The Warder are well underway. I’m excited to see the story taking shape, and the characters come alive on the page. I learnt to love the rewrites a long time ago, to keep going with that extra effort to make the story as good as it can be. And so this is where my head is at most of the time, with my beloved book 2.
I did digress briefly a week or so ago, when I wrote a short piece for the Royal Brompton Hospital charity fund. They are raising money for ECMO, the machine that saved my life this year, and were on the hunt for patient stories, adding faces and a personal touch to their appeal. While writing mine I focused on recovery, and thought of trips out by the river or the sea, in the woods or town, savouring the feel of fresh air on my face after a two month hospital stay. I keep trying to think up weird and wonderful ways of raising money for the appeal, all of which involve some kind of physical activity challenge. For the moment it is on the back burner. With regular physio my strength is improving, but, alas, not enough to take on a half marathon.
For now I settle for daily walks, taking comfort in the familiar and appreciating the ordinary. I’m up to 1.8 miles a day on a well-practised circular route around St Thomas. The following is a brief tour:
First stop are Guy’s allotments. I recently discovered that Guy’s field was turned into wartime allotments in 1917, much to the dismay of the owner of the field, a local baker, James Guy. In the modern world of fast food, I’d never really considered allotments being built out of necessity. Now, looking among the sea of ramshackle sheds, wondering where the red Kentucky sign has gone, I see tomatoes and apples, remnants of a summer harvest, discarded on the ground, and a prize display of giant pumpkins ready to be carved up for Halloween.
Under the bridge the train comes rumbling overhead, across the rugby field deserted except for tip-tapping sea gulls searching for worms. Onto the riverside, beyond the resident cormorants diving for fish and the trusty mallards sticking close to the reeds, there is a flash of colour, striking, although I preferred the blue Avatar eye.
The enormous willow in the middle of the Exe bridges has been a favourite of mine since first moving here. Then back to the railway, and a treasured mosaic hidden under the arch.
Last stop before returning to the rows of terraces is St Thomas pleasure ground. There’s a story to be found in everything and I have fondly nicknamed this park Esio Trot, after Roald Dahl’s novel. With one side edged with retirement flats, I imagine one of the occupiers sitting on the balcony with his collection of tortoises, wondering how he can conjure up small talk with his neighbour, Judy Dench.
Just a street away now, I pass a house I once visited as part of Devon Open studios, owned by an artist who fills his house with pictures he has painted of crashing waves. It made me wonder whether he was striving to paint the perfect wave. Then a curious garden where eyes watch from every corner – actually a menagerie of cuddly toys surviving outside through all the seasons.
Then turn a corner up a short steep incline to home.
Just in time for a peppermint tea…
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