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The still sea is darker than before
Jun. 1st, 2022 01:07 amDog roses and honeysuckle are in flower now along the lane. This side of the road, the woodbine is flushed with candy-pink and gold; the other's much paler. I've meant to check the hedges for moths or robin's pincushion, but the last couple of days have been pulse after pulse of rain, which might also explain why I've seen no swifts.
I tried to read P. J. Harvey's verse-novel ORLAM at the weekend, but couldn't finish it - there's an act of sexual violence in it that set off a panic attack so bad I was still shaking an hour or so after I put the book down. (This last week in general hasn't been very kind to my mental health, which has been taking a slo-mo landslide ever since my dad died in January.) So I've carried on puttering through a re-read of various things by Ramsey Campbell. Another book I came across recently was THE BLACK HORSEMEN by S. G Wildman. The glorious subtitle is ENGLISH INNS AND KING ARTHUR; Wildman's theory is that certain pub names record the passing of Arthur's cavalry as they fought off Saxon incomers around AD 500. It's pleasantly bonkers but not as out there as many other earth mysteries/antiquarian books that came out in the Seventies. He breaks off hs quest to investigate the Red Horse of Tysoe ((a hillside figure in Warwickshire that appears to've gone through several versions before it was erased for good in the early 1900s) and then claims to find traces of other figures in the turf he associates with the god Tiw. Hmm. It's a diverting little read, mind.
Vaguely pecking away at what *might* be a new story called THE GEOGRAPHY, which I'd like to be a sort of Blackwoodian or Machenesque slant of my little corner of the world (and perhaps another one just beyond it, seen through the prism of a certain field). So far So far, it's like doing a jigsaw puzzle without having the picture on the box to refer to. But the pieces look pretty!
I tried to read P. J. Harvey's verse-novel ORLAM at the weekend, but couldn't finish it - there's an act of sexual violence in it that set off a panic attack so bad I was still shaking an hour or so after I put the book down. (This last week in general hasn't been very kind to my mental health, which has been taking a slo-mo landslide ever since my dad died in January.) So I've carried on puttering through a re-read of various things by Ramsey Campbell. Another book I came across recently was THE BLACK HORSEMEN by S. G Wildman. The glorious subtitle is ENGLISH INNS AND KING ARTHUR; Wildman's theory is that certain pub names record the passing of Arthur's cavalry as they fought off Saxon incomers around AD 500. It's pleasantly bonkers but not as out there as many other earth mysteries/antiquarian books that came out in the Seventies. He breaks off hs quest to investigate the Red Horse of Tysoe ((a hillside figure in Warwickshire that appears to've gone through several versions before it was erased for good in the early 1900s) and then claims to find traces of other figures in the turf he associates with the god Tiw. Hmm. It's a diverting little read, mind.
Vaguely pecking away at what *might* be a new story called THE GEOGRAPHY, which I'd like to be a sort of Blackwoodian or Machenesque slant of my little corner of the world (and perhaps another one just beyond it, seen through the prism of a certain field). So far So far, it's like doing a jigsaw puzzle without having the picture on the box to refer to. But the pieces look pretty!