There is timber on the beach
logs like beached sausages
bleached white by the sun
roots with twisted gargoyle faces
washed up with the tide
in the evening
the locals come
with cool boxes
fold up chairs
babies in blankets
beer and baskets
fires are lit
custard yellow sweetcorn
hisses and spits
over the burning embers

There is no wind
as the sun goes down
sea striped silver
like a mackerel
a heron stands motionless
on a rock
the silence broken
by the barking
of the sea lions
far out in the bay

The guard
grunted as we climbed aboard
the train heading to Sofia
There were fields of sunflowers
and dusty bulrushes
along the river bank
a stork, brilliant white
against the azure sky
like a shirt hanging out to dry
perches on a rock
waiting for a fish
we passed rusty ships scrapyards piled high
with cars
Dacias, Skodas, pick up trucks
rotting in the metal graveyard
behind the chimneys
every now and then the train stopped
doors slammed and creaked
people got on and off
scuttling home
hermit crabs carrying Lidl bags
and Gucci purses
little whitewashed houses
with terracotta roofs
pergolas draped with vines
hot lazy cats
lying in the shade of the fig trees

There used to be peonies 
out back by the terrace
and a piano in the hall
someone once had records
we found some on the floor
along with yellowed paper
so bleached it turned to dust
when touched

(Written after a visit to NG’s derelict farmhouse in Bulgaria)

Coming  into view through the trees
at the top of the hill 
a concrete spaceship in elephant grey 
stark against the cornflower sky
a forgotten monument to past triumphs  
there is nothing left
inside this empty shell 
where hundreds once gathered to celebrate
that splendid time
their glorious voices echoing across the valley
now only graffiti and rubble remain 
amidst piles of rusty metal where comrades once stood 
the windows filled with coloured glass 
are now gaping holes 
where the swallows nest 

My knees are your table
balancing wine and dips
hummus breath, garlic kiss
snap of breadsticks
Sauna’s hiss
secrets whispered stories shared
mint and myrtle leaves prepared
sweaty backs and steam curled hair
tip up the bucket if you dare|
outside a smokehouse aged and green
with hams and sausages hung from the beams
waiting for the sun and the promise of Spring

Written after going to see the documentary ‘Steam Sauna Sisterhood’

I’ll sing you a song in a voice so silky

of a strange young fellow named Willy Milky

with huge flapping ears beneath his trilby

and you never really know if he won’t, or will be

if his glass is very full, or just half empty

is he over 65 or under twenty?

are elasticated slacks still cool and trendy?

does he hobble up the stairs or is he supple and bendy?

was his double chin smooth, or rough and prickly?

skin tanned like a berry or white and sickly?

does he say what he means or is he being tricky

is the food in his beard slimy or sticky?

does he like his cheese mild or stinky?

when he shouts, hoots and chatters, does he sound like a monkey?

would you trust him with your life, or even your door key?

if you sicked up your lunch, would he hand you his hankie?

is he shrivelled like a troll, or tall and lanky?

thin as a rake, or round and bulky?

cheerfully chattering, or silent and sulky

are his favourite chips thin, or thick and chunky?

does he dance like a chicken or something less funky?

and that is the ballad of young Willy Milky

It would have been very hard not to notice over the last two months that I have taken possession of a camper van, (unless perhaps you live in a cave, abroad, or sensibly do not take the slightest notice of social media). I apologise for being Mrs Let’s talk about vans and can only hope for everyone’s sake that the novelty will wear off (which as you all know is as likely as me suddenly finding a passion for eating fish).

Anyway, I am now the proud owner of Wolf, a sweet little red T4 VW with a high roof so you can stand up while looking for the lighter/teapot/socks/. He also has a little wood burner, a proper cooker (that came off a boat) and a porthole by the table so I can sit and write or read while looking across whatever field I happen to be in. I also seems to have involuntarily become part of a VW van club and people ( usually men in sandals and socks) pop over for a chat and to discuss engines and awnings, a very different situation to when I used to drive my old Mercedes truck up and down the A 303 between London and North Devon, when peoples reactions were fairly extreme.

One particular event stands out. I stopped at the services somewhere down the M4 and as I drew up a woman in a velour tracksuit was standing outside her car with a little dog. When she saw the beast of a truck pull up she panicked and hurriedly shut the dog inside the car, obviously thinking the peace convoy had arrived and that she might catch something awful from the unwashed hippy inside who might try and kidnap her and force her to join a cult, or something. So I jumped out and started chatting to her in my best and politest voice. Ten minutes later she was sitting inside my truck with tea, weeping that her dog was terminally ill and that her no good husband had left her. I had to persuade her that no, she didn’t want to come and live with me but needed to return to her house in Basingstoke. Another time Lucas and I stopped off at some god forsaken campsite on the long drive home. The reception form the neat rows of motorhomes and glowering owners made us feel a bit like that bit from ” A werewolf in London’ when the guy turns up at the pub in the middle of nowhere and everyone stops talking and looks at him ( I think it was called’ The Slaughtered lamb’). Anyway I also got used to being followed round petrol station shops in case I decided I wanted to save £75 on bags of sweets and nasty sandwiches by stealing them. For me it was all a little tiresome but quite amusing. People ( including me) are so quick to judge and to jump to conclusions. I should have made it even more confusing by dressing in a twinset and pearls, not that I have one.

Anyway, this weekend is my first night away in Wolfie and we are in a campsite near Brighton that is a little similar to the one with the glowering motorhome owners, though nobody is actually glowering here and the sun is out. Rows of huge beige gleaming motorhomes with TV aerials and names like ” Commander’ and ‘Defender’ spread right across the field, but we are nicely tucked into the corner next to the chickens and a large rather terrifying looking goat. Last night we managed a fabulous roast chicken ( sorry next door chickens) with roast spuds and roast veg all done in our Cobb ovens. It’s a great warm up for the big camp in August and strange to be here with four rather than twenty (though much quieter and its easy to make a quick cup of tea for one and hop back into bed, my fellow N Devon campers will know what I mean)

My first night was disappointingly chilly as I didn’t even think for one minute I should have got the wood burner going before getting into bed as it had been such a hot day. I ended up gradually putting most of my clothes back on and regretted not bringing socks ( perhaps the socked sandal brigade have a point). Wolf is actually quite small and I need to learn to be a lot tidier than I am and to have a place for everything. This is obviously part of the fun, a bit similar to setting up the camp kitchen in Hartland and I just know this summer is going to be the best fun

I am sitting in bed with a cup of Earl Grey and Radio 4, watching two fat geese waddling about and some fat pigeons crashing about in the sycamore tree behind me. I’m thinking about curtains and hooks and how long it will be before I decide I need to bake a cake or some bread in my oven, and whether its time to start on that next collage. I am smiling to myself at how ridiculously content all this makes me

Happy Sunday peeps.

Last week my old chum J turned up with some startling and extremely upsetting news. Twinings have stopped making Lapsang Souchong. What was even more astonishing was when I was relating this shocking tit bit to a younger friend, she said she hadn’t even heard of it. Never heard of it? What is this younger generation doing with their time?

Twinings have replaced it with something that comes in a similar coloured box, but its is now called ‘Distinctly smoky’ which sounds like something you would find on a pack of bacon. Indeed one disgruntled customer likened it to ‘fake bacon that you get in pizza’ which in itself gets me going as pineapple and sweetcorn are in my opinion bad enough, but fake bacon? Another comment was that it tasted like old cigarettes which again is enough to make us all run for the sick bucket. Then again people who I love dearly think Lapsang tastes like creosote, but personally I have always rather liked creeping up on wooden fences for a quick lick, and I find the whole smoky smell comforting and warm and it reminds me of my mum.

Tea has always been a huge part of my every day life, and mornings simply don’t feel right without a couple of mugs of Earl Grey, despite the fact that the last one invariably gets left somewhere ( in the garden, allotment, bathroom, in the car etc). I once drove the whole way to Greenwich with a cup of tea on the roof of my car. It was still there on arrival but disappointingly the tea was cold.

The only time I was unable to see the joys of tea was when I was pregnant. Each time the very thought of tea, teapots, tea bags would send me into a panicky sick frenzy. Even the smell sent me waddling from the kitchen. But each time, nine months later the first thing I would ask for after giving birth was a cup of tea.

There have also been some challenging tea encounters, firstly in Japan where traditional tea is nothing like tea as we know it, but is a green sort of frothy green spinach like substance that gets stuck in between your teeth, not helped by the fact that by the time you get round to actually drinking it you have been kneeling for hours, have lost any feeling below your waist, and have slightly lost the will to live.

The second incident was when a very well meaning student took me to a ‘ Olde English tea room’ which was rather ominously placed on the 19th floor of a large department store. The decor was what could be described as ‘Holly Hobby’ twee ( for those of you who remember this kitsch cutesy flowery 70’s look). Rather bizarrely (then again remember this was Japan, where bizarre has its own fabulous meaning) the waitresses were wearing Little Bo Peep outfits with large frilly bonnets and though there wouldn’t have been enough room you could imagine a couple of coiffured ( and dyed Barbie pink) sheep frolicking around the fake Baroque style tables and chairs. The food was predictably muffins ( which are on offer everywhere) and sandwiches made out of thickly sliced white bread that was so soft and chewy it dissolved in your mouth like a marshmallow.

And then of course the friendly muffin. I’m not sure I had ever eaten a muffin before I went to live in Japan, though all our friends there were convinced that all us Britishers ever did was munch on a buttered and toasted muffin to lift our spirits as yet another pea souper descended over London ( and yes, raining cats and dogs caused concern amongst many).

Anyway, my ‘Tea Royale’ was spectacular and very very wrong. It was made from hot milk which had had the tea bag dunked in it, and was served in a tall glass with whipped cream, grated chocolate and hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top. All these years later the very memory sends a shudder through me.

And the last and most memorable is Yak tea, a drink that is quite hard to describe on every level and I can’t quite imagine that we drank it several times, but we did. We were travelling through Tibet and it was often offered to us by our sweet and generous hosts who were simply the nicest people I have ever met. Think slightly rancid milk, slightly warmed, with a hint of stomach. Add a garnish of hair ( yak) and what seemed to be toenails, and there you have it.

And on that note it’s time to put the kettle on.

I inherited Elvis the cat about three years or so ago when B and T upped sticks and went to live in Berlin. Seeing as our dear old family cat Gollum is no longer with us ( plus we have a cat flap and a garden) this seemed like a perfectly good idea, so he duly moved in. He is a funny little weirdo cat with beautiful tiger stripes and an ear that has a little nip out of it as if it was clipped by the ticket collector on the number 12 bus when I first moved to London ( for those who remember such things) though more likely be the result of a run in with a fox.

Elvis has always been quite ” spirited”, a term used for me in numerous school reports which mostly means a bit naughty but in his case add “no regard for personal safety”. When he was very small he used to run out of the front door and right up to the very top of the nearest tree and would scamper all the way to the shops after you. This daredevil attitude to life came to an abrupt halt one day when he fell through the stairwell from the top of the house and broke his pelvis. A major operation and months being confined to a cage later he was right as rain, though he still sits in a funny way with his leg poking out at an angle.

We settled in pretty well together and he quickly mastered the art of squeezing through the gate at the bottom of garden to get into the allotment and to navigate his way back round if he got shut out the front ( a regular occurrence as he likes to shoot out of the door as soon as its opened.

And then about six months ago something happened and he sort of disappeared, only coming in fleetingly to wolf down his supper and then legging it back outside. He didn’t seem to want to hang around at all and retreated under the kitchen table, flinching if anyone tried to touch him. It was all a bit odd and I couldn’t work out what was going on with him. This continued for a while and he stopped even eating his food, so I managed to catch him and take him to the vet ( where unbelievably he purred and sat quietly as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth as I tried to explain that there was actually something wrong with him). In the end the vet just told me to keep an eye on him and we left. As soon as we arrived home he bolted.

This continued for a while and I became a bit obsessed with finding out where he was going. On Amazon you can buy tracking devices for cats and dogs that you attach to their collars which you then connect to your phone. Of course I bought one and despite a lot of wriggling on his part, managed to get it on and set up. The trouble with this sort of thing is that you can’t stop yourself from looking at it the entire time. I watched as he went out into the allotments, sat in the allotments, went up the street, went down the street, came back into the garden and then bingo! The tracker kept stopping and pulsing on one spot, four doors down and even when I woke up in the night and happened to glance at it despite all sorts of tracker trails, he was always there.

Now I am under no illusion that cats actually love their owners as much as we would like to think they do and know they are very easily persuaded that somewhere else is more exciting than home, and that they tend to march on their stomachs. And I wanted to know where he was going and why he was going there.

So I went and knocked. Though I have lived in this street for years and pretty much know everyone, this particular house has various youngish professionals living there and we were never exactly sure who lived there and who didn’t, and I didn’t really know any of them. though I did know that there was a cat flap leading into their house from the flat roof above their kitchen as a previous occupant had owned a ginger cat who she used to walk on a lead. A young (and not over friendly) woman answered the door. I explained who I was and said that I thought Elvis had been spending a lot of time in their house and wondered if we could have a chat. She said” I don’t know anything about a cat” and just as she was about to shut the door who should appear behind her on the landing but Elvis. This rather flummoxed her so she mumbled that she would get her housemate to come over when she got back from work.

That evening a rather squeaky voiced woman turned up on the doorstep in a frenzy of plaits and patchouli oil. I said obviously I didn’t mind where Elvis went but I didn’t want anyone to feed him and that we rather missed having him around. ” Oh I don’t feed him” she said. ” I feed the foxes”. To be honest anyone who feeds the foxes in this area is (in my opinion) out of their minds, we have so many foxes, in the gardens, on the allotments, under next doors shed ( where the last litter of fox cubs were born and ended up being killed, mauled, half eaten and discarded around the garden like a gruesome hour film). ” Its to stop them digging up my garden ” she said and proceeded to outline her routine.

9 am Feed the foxes outside her kitchen

6 am Feed the foxes again

She also very proudly told me that she had rigged up a camera outside so she could get them on camera while they were feeding

I asked what she fed them and she replied that she bought Lidl tinned food for them. I asked whether Elvis ever also ate it and she let slip that yes, she fed him separately to stop him eating the foxes portion.. and that she also slipped him a few Dreamies ( which as we all know is like crack for cats). Anyway she was perfectly reasonable and agreed that she would lock the cat flap to keep him out and would stop feeding him.

When I got home encountered M who was back home for a visit. I explained that the woman was obviously unhinged as she had a camera outside her kitchen for fox surveillance. M looked at me long and hard and said, ” Yes, and you have a tracker around your pets neck”.

Elvis is now firmly ensconced back at home and even sleeps on my bed ( annoying but warming). The only downside is that I had to continue him on wet cat food which is revolting, but at least its not from Lidl.