june round up
WELL I completely missed May this year. I was actually in, of all places: Disneyland. With my small humans and my mama. It was an intense trip, intensely hot, intensely physical (a lot of walking), intensely expensive, intensely stomach turning (rollercoasters) and a lot of fun. Having Granbun here is an absolute treat and seeing her and Luna together is very special.
June has been about re-balancing so sitting at the allotment and beach. Last weekend I walked 38 miles of the South West Coast Path in Cornwall, which has been a long held dream of mine. A friend and I started at Treen and ended at Gurnards Head.
Highlights were: Pedn Vounder Beach, Farm + Fort Cafe, Porthgwarra Cove, Sennen surf shop, Gwenver Beach, the tidal pool at Cape Cornwall, dahl at The Little Wonder Cafe, Portheras Cove, sublime flora and fauna along the path; foxgloves, ferns, thistles, huge daisies and also butterflies, dragonflies, hunting birds, cinnebar moths and a lot of cows. When you are walking like that for 3 days you can feel the path change from craggy to tropical, through lush vegetation to sparse moors and into farmland. This month has brought a big change and I am reminded that you always feel like life will be just as it is until it changes direction. The path gave me a lot of time to think and I owe that experience a huge amount because I really needed it.
I have changed the name of my journal to ‘the enthusiast’ because I am number 7 on the enneagram test. If you haven’t done yours I highly recommend it. What is life about if it’s not about self actualisation? Knowing deeply who I am makes the rest of my life more satisfying and enjoyable.
What I Read in May & June
Still Life by Sarah Winman
The Lost Child by Julie Myerson
The Instant by Amy Liptrot
When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman
Why Women Grow: Stories of Soil, Sisterhood & Survival by Alice Vincent
The Mountain is You by Brianna Wiest
Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
I adore the way Sarah Winman writes, I loved her book When God Was A Rabbit, maybe one of only a handful of books i read in my twenties (who even was I that decade?! Not me!) so after loving Still Life I went back and read it again. I think the way she paints characters is very special, are they really not real? They are in my head.
I had a special psychedelic experience in May and woke up the next morning thinking about allotments. Be careful what you ask for in life because that very week a friend decided to sublet hers and there you have it, no 10 year waiting list for me! My kitchen is crowded with seedlings and I cannot wait to plant them this weekend. I love Alice Vincent’s book about why women grow, their gardens and their lives in nature, investing time in growing something is incredibly cathartic and having known I had a lot of green fingered ancestors I always wondered when my time would come. So here we are.
MONTHLY FAVOURITES
Listened to… How We Love by Clementine Ford. The Aussie feminist is one of my favourite instagrammers. She is wise and caring and speaks about Motherhood with an honesty which made me wince (and nod!). She is hugely inspiring and has walked a path I am just setting out on so I am looking up to her for all of her wisdom right now.
Turned up for… May: A Little Life at the Harold Pinter theatre in London. The hugely divisive cult novel by Hanya Yanighara has been recreated on stage, with James Norton. The book my friend described as ‘similar to being stabbed, repeatedly’. Or as Alex Needham pondered ‘torture porn or serious literature’?. I adored it, what a reminder of how fragile life is, how brief and painful and beautiful our time here is. Even though I also wish that I could re write it with a slightly more happy outcome for Jude.
To see it come to life infront of my eyes was terrifying but also so brilliantly done. Not for one second in 3 hours and 40 minutes did I become distracted or wish it would be over. This is what usually happens to me in the theatre.
June: Straight from playing Glastonbury Sudan Archives came to Concorde 2 in Brighton and I honestly at some points thought that the roof was going to take off. She went from playing violin in a beautiful solo to dropping the most insane sonic explosion where my legs shook and everyone in the crowd was jumping. It felt like we were on a launching space ship.
