8.1.24
in the soil
The village or town, flattened presumably in the war, consists now entirely of a hodge-podge of modern houses constructed according, it seems, to no guiding architectural principle or indeed plan of any kind beyond the line of the street, pointed-roofed bungalows hunching against the weather next to bunker-like buildings made in the outline of a ship’s wheelhouse next to blocks of flats, white and grey and balconied, of the sort you see everywhere. The odd impression you get of the place at its centre as a suburb of nothing gives way on its edges to unpavemented country roads down which hurtle SUVs and putter little granny cars, and aside from the mud-flats of the nature reserves huddled between caravan parks to the east every possible surface is covered with paving slabs or with concrete. There is something of the laguna about it but where that is an anchorage here a constant wind from the south-southwest drives flecks of sea-foam up and through the air, which is filled always with the clacking and whistling of the rigging of small vessels whipped against masts; seagulls struggle in space, gazing outwards. Perhaps they are considering the choice their siblings have made, to forage among the refuse of the mainland.
in the kitchen
I can look out at all this through the windows slowly steaming up from the various pots and pans that mean Christmas, a far-too-large casserole full of braising red cabbage – I will never learn the right scale to cook at for home – next to a pan of bones and vegetable trimmings into which goes the leakings of every bit of meat I cook, a bottles-worth of boxed red wine, some port, some sherry, this holiday let has no flour and I forgot to order any for the tablespoon a gravy requires and so I reduce it instead, and even with the meat juices and the wine there is only just enough, I will never learn the right scale to cook at, for home.
on the page
From my brother’s partner I receive a copy of Werner Herzog’s new memoir Every Man for Himself and God Against All and read it over a couple of days, it is endlessly quotable and deranged. It strikes me on finishing it that while there are some artists – craftspeople, creators – who are only able to really express their eccentricities once they have been accepted into the establishment and attained a kind of elder statesman status others are apparently incapable of not doing so their whole lives long and that both are valid ways to live a life – although the former might make for more interesting memoirs.