I was sitting in my garden this afternoon, beading and making jewellery.

Beading soothes me and I can lose myself in the rhythmn of it. That's one of the reasons I have always liked working with my hands -- you become lost in the task and your mind only works on that. Your brain gets absorbed by the problem of choosing the beads and the sequence to put them in and how to knot the thread so that the bracelet stays tight and true. Should I put charms on this bracelet and if so which ones? And those earrings: should I make them long or short? The only interruption is when abead rolls off the tray or out of my hands and I have to get down on my knees to retrieve it.

The dog lies in the shade to one side of me, only rousing to snap at a passing fly and the cat is tucked somewhere in the couch grass that will not be banished, no matter what I do. For once the neighbour with the loud radio is quiet: asleep or away somewhere and I have forgotten to bring out my radio, so all I hear is the birdsong and the breeze. The beach would be nice for a walk, I think, but that thought will also have ocurred to several dozen other people this evening, so I leave it and promise the dog we'll go tomorrow morning instead.

But tomorrow I will be a day closer to a bridge I don't want to go over. I try not to worry about it, knowing it is just a bridge from here to there, and I really want to be there but I know the land beneath it is swampy and infested with monsters and it's a bit like that rope bridge in The Temple of Doom, ricketty and with a posse of fierceness poised to push me off. The dog rolls over and sits up. I think she heard me think the word walk...

"First, realize that you are surrounded by prison walls, that your mind has gone to sleep. It does not even occur to most people to see this, so they live and die as prison inmates.

Most people end up being conformists; they adapt to prison life. A few become reformers; they fight for better living conditions in the prison, better lighting, better ventilation.

Hardly anyone becomes a rebel, a revolutionary who breaks down the prison walls. You can only be a revolutionary when you see the prison walls in the first place."


-- Anthony de Mello

I had a book returned today. Now, I know that one has to persevere with numerous submissions to many publishers before one gets even a sniff of interest, but it still dwindles one's little writer's heart when you get a rejection. Especially when it's from the premier pusher of pulp romantic fiction telling you to read more of their output. Clearly I need to ramp up the purple in my prose...

The difference between one friend and another is in their reaction to Grianan.

Friend no 1: "Where could you get as fabulous a view as this anywhere in the world"; "It's the air up here -- it's so clean."

Friend no 2: "Grianan gives me the creeps."


But then, she's the sort of person who prefers designer shoes to the open air.

Summer's Lease...

Finally a day that felt like summer. Warm enough to go bare-shouldered and to eat outside in my hodge-podge pocket hanky of a garden. Warm enough to run with the dog through newly cut grass. Warm enough to have to water the plants again this evening. Finally something like summer.

But also warm enough to notice the flipping litter strewn all over the place; plastic bags and fast-food containers and broken glass pock marking the hedgerows and the verges. Warm enough to hear the roar of motorbikes as they do double the speed limit with blithe impunity. Warm enough to hear the neighbours' dire choice of country'n'western dross on one side and teenaged metal rap on the other. And no matter if I was ill mannered enough to turn Radio 4 up to the max, I don't think the sound of The Archers would drown either of them out.

More and more I wish that I didn't live in the suburbs, where everyone sees you the minute you walk out the door; where neighbours impinge, however thoughtlessly and where the roar of the dual carriageway is never too far away.

When I first moved here, years ago, the countryside was still only a lane away and the road was a trickle of traffic. There were no grumpy teenagers with blue bags and loud music. It was peaceful here, then. It's still pretty quiet, here, tucked in my still little turn of a few houses. But it's no longer quiet enough.

Summer's lease hath all too short a date....

Happy Lughnasadh, by the way, to all.

One of the advantages of living half-way to the wilds of Donegal is that, well, Donegal is so close. Twenty minutes from my suburban doorstep are half a dozen beaches, each more beautiful than the other. On the other hand, each of those beaches is also twenty minutes from all the other suburbanites. Ah, well, a girl can't have everything. And when the scenery so short a distance away is this drop-dead-gorgeous, who can complain?