Sunday

This post has the potential to become incredibly long and winding: I am in a writing mood and there is much to write about.

Wasn't it all very romantic? This holiday of ours that came suddenly and ended suddenly (but the middle seems to stretch out endlessly now, looking back) and took place under blue skies and golden dusks. I promised to write it all out in more than one sentence, but as per usual I can only think to talk about the minutiae, or the impressions so big they're just blurry colours and emotions. Like the first night in which I was so desperate to be perfect I snapped the fragile-as-glass situation we were already slipping over. That evening is awash with the panic of the twilight in which *I couldn't see* as well as with the panic of ruining it all so soon. But coming back to our room straight out of that realm of my brain where all these things I pride myself on are made, slipping into bed and it was all OK. (What a space! The furniture and the carpet you sink into and the chair I completely romanticized in that silly phone photo, and the bed. I said to myself one time that I was going to make a patchwork quilt like that.)

But I'm breaking my promise and talking about unimportant things. We went to a cheese factory, and talked to an old man about the beauty of nature and God (he was right, of course, and the landscape just outside our bed and breakfast was all English and attractive. It made me think that if I was ever going to lose myself and have some lost teenage summer romance, it would be with a Pre-Raphaelite girl with thick thick hair and flowing skirts. It'd be painful, too, and upsetting and turbulent and everything a good satisfying love affair should be. Inspirational. And she wouldn't know, and if she did she'd let me down gently [because everything she would do will be gentle, and fit perfectly in the stream picture that was outside the place we stayed last week]. She would be intelligent in a womanly way - know how to do all the things I'm half-hearted with like sewing and/or flower arranging - and full of quotations and little pieces of advice and bunches of forget-me-nots. She'd know the Latin name for them, too. She is also imagined and built around one view of one tiny piece of land in one tiny corner of Britain, and a manifestation of this silliness made by sunshine and lovely happiness and Fiona Apple.)

Anything else? We walked (miles! and I got stuck on top of a fence by a railway - remind you of anything? :P) and ate lots of different food, lots of biscuits and muffins. I started these stupid palpitations again that are Nothing To Worry About, but are extremely annoying and make me stressed. I got a cough, too, a chest one dammit. We went on about a thousand trains, and although we were being silly at the time, when you said 'We've learnt stuff about each other, but also about ourselves' on the Tube yesterday you were actually being truthful. I learnt that I am more fragile than I like to think, that I'm in love with my own imagination in a sort of bad and self-obsessed way (see above :P), that I am happiest when we walk and talk about books or psychology or religion. I learnt that you're worse in the evening, that you're best at lunchtime and that you can forgive even my most difficult and volatile moods. It was educational, and wonderful. Thank you :)

I had this snippet in my head all week too:
'It's not about the smile you wear, but the way we make out.'
This song is truly the obsession of the moment.

Oh! and I almost forgot coming back to London. I felt another little bit of love for that silly addictive place this morning, standing on Dominic's front path in the sunshine. It was also lovely to see people last night and be almost entirely immersed in the quick quick chatter that flits so unapologetically from one topic to the next. Clever and passionate people! My slow little brain could not keep up, and thus my voice often went unheard or didn't come out at all. It was surprisingly comfortable, though, and a happy and welcoming time.

And I actually think that might be it. We saw 'The Tempest' and 'Young Victoria', too. Happy times! (And Josie's party tonight! Even more happiness abounds!)

BB, Lucy
xxx