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Archive for May, 2009

A Day Off

2009
05.29

Posted in France, My Writing, Places | 6 Comments »

Cafe Capitaine

Today I decided to take a day off from writing (well apart from this!). I suppose you could say it was a kind of celebration, as yesterday I reached 40,000 words which is half a novel by anyone’s standards!

Danny Beck my somewhat reluctant Private Investigator is no longer reluctant! He is up to his eyes in it and beginning to think he might be quite good at this investigation thing. Newcastle looms large in the novel, so I will be taking a few trips there when I get back with David who knows the city well and I hope to The Cluny club with Carole - (you’ll be pleased to know Carole, that Beck has already been there looking for a journalist who is heavily into the blues.) I think Beck has an eclectic taste in music- so some blues, jazz,(haven’t managed any French jazz yet Warren but still hoping – sure that gets in your soul too) classical, folk, (Miles of Aisles yes John!) rock – bit like me maybe.

The novel moves on at a pace I could only have dreamed of and Beck grows with it – I am getting very fond of him, he’s a great guy and the more I write, the more I am convinced that taking time-out to write is one of the best things you can do for your writing. This is the principal on which RoomToWrite was founded (by Wendy, Gillian and myself) – it is about attending to what you do and giving it the space to develop. It is also about being in the right surroundings with the right people.

So, tomorrow it will be back to work. But what to do on a Thursday off in Agde? My recipe is as follows:

- begin with a wander through the market and pick up any bargains -got a great man’s shirt today for 4 Euros

- buy flowers, cheese, olives and delicious apricots

-have coffee and croissant at the Café Plazza and people watch – so much to look at on market day

-hang out at lunchtime (or anytime for that matter) in the Café Capitaine in the Place de la Marine, down on the waterfront and drink wine. This is my favourite café, run by a lovely lady – its friendly, laid back, stylish, a cool breeze coming off the river, dappled shade of the plane trees and children playing in the square – excellent food too..

Agde Waterfront

Wine at the Cafe Capitaine

- take a siesta in the quiet of the afternoon

- eat fresh pasta and salad then follow it with an evening stroll by the waterfront or the canal – and who knows another glass or two of wine? And a lot of talk about writing of course.

8 comments

What Are Sundays For?

2009
05.26

Posted in France, My Writing | 8 Comments »

sundya-papers

What better way to spend Sunday than on the roof terrace reading the Sunday papers – Duck Island meltdown and Bob Dylan – his most revealing interview – when did Bob Dylan ever reveal anything he didn’t want you to know ? - Still it was worth the read and I of course I needed to catch up on the latest in sleaze.

I enjoyed my chocolate lolly too.

After the papers I got down to some writing – not easy on a laptop in the sun, despite umbrella. Any tips please for using a laptop out of doors?

On Sunday I left Beck driving west out of Newcastle towards Weardale on his way to meet a cop he knows, to help identify a body dumped on the roadside – 34,000 words (38,000 now!) Then before retiring to the cool of the kitchen I had a quick blast of the man with the golden voice -Leonard Cohen – another poet like Dylan.

So many brilliant lines – my favourite from Sunday – And I can’t forget, and I can’t forget, and I can’t forget but I don’t remember when… (or was it ‘what’? can’t remember)

Let me know your favourite – or maybe you don’t like Leonard – so favourite other lyric -ANY – I’m easy.

To round off a perfect day I took a cycle ride.

You will be pleased to know I have not abandoned la bicyclette pink despite both the chain and me falling off on my very first ride. I’m feeling more confident now and I especially love cycling the small back roads between the meadows of corn and poppies.

Seven o'clock Sunday evening

The early evening light here lays itself across the land like silver, so that you could be forgiven for thinking that a dew had fallen or a mist had risen above the corn.

Morning on the canal

Whatever time of day on the canal, light sparkles up at you from the water, and down through the trees, like a crystal confetti.

I don’t ever remember being in so much light for such a sustained period, apart from my travels in India, and that was a long time ago now.

3 comments

Colour – for Katie

2009
05.25

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

I saw this cards in the windows of a decorator’s shop across the road from the Café Plazza where Wendy and I do a lot of hanging out and I thought of you Katie.

colour-charts

The colours are typical of those used on the buildings here in Agde - really different from those we see around us on the streets at home.

Of course it’s about the light. Light changes the painters’ palette, and it would seem the decorators’ too. Brilliant sun and intense blue sky change everything.

As someone who normally wears more than her fair share of black I find that here I would like to be much bolder: coral and turquoise, green, yellow even, although yellow has never been a favourite colour of mine (as you know) and pale chalky blues and white – because they look so gorgeous in the sun.

It’s a bit like mists and windows with me, I’ve always had a thing about colour – it has to be right for me and I think its the same for you.

As you can’t make it to Agde here are some colour pictures for you:

pink-paint

turquoise-door

red-wood

walls

6 comments

Bob Dylan, Desire and Wear Valley Writers.

2009
05.22

Posted in France, Places, Poetry | 6 Comments »

i-pod-black

It’s Wednesday evening and for the second time today I find myself thinking of the Wear Valley Writers* who always meet on Wednesdays at this time in Bishop Auckland Town Hall.

The first time I thought of them was earlier when I lay stretched out in the sun on the roof terrace with my i Pod listening to Bob Dylan’s album Desire, and was reminded of Jeff’s great workshop on writing song lyrics. He too is a Dylan fan.

Desire seems to me to be the perfect Dylan album to play in the heat of the south (someone who knows more about music, Warren maybe, might tell me why? ) but I think it’s all those exotic names and that hot electric violin.

I’ve been wondering what my Private Investigator, Danny Beck, might listen to – maybe jazz, but what? Sting, for sure. Definitely Bach – Sonatas for Cello and Piano played by Pablo Casals, which I am listening to as I write this, but not often because it makes him sad….oh… and I think he has a secret liking for Duffy too…

I always want to know what music my characters listen to. It is important to know both the small and the significant things about the people you create beacuse that’s what brings them to life.

Here is a poem I am writing inspired by listening to Bob Dylan – its a work in progress.

Desire

…the way the room smells

of lemon and the chair creaks

above on the wide roof terrace,

-still afternoon when the children sleep

and silent streets run down

to the canal through the maze

of unreality -

-in the living of another country

…the way the sun slips in

at the arrow slit in the old city

wall, falling across blue striped sheets,

bed too small, and never the time

before it was time to go

…the way the swifts dance in the air

above the roof and shutters close on

the soft jazz of evening

and Bob Dylan plays still

in my ear-Desire’s violin,

electric, hot

… the way I see you smiling in the

gardens and galleries of our pretensions

..the way I am here and you are not.

* Wear Valley Writers is a great writing group run with style, intelligence and wit by writer P J Walters. It offers only constructive criticism of work in progress and like any good writing group – it is a safe place in which to share your work and it is full of good, talented writers too!

8 comments

La Bicyclette

2009
05.17

Posted in France, People | 8 Comments »

bicycle-2

On Friday our lovely landlady Nira called at the house. We shared a lunchtime glass of wine and wonderful conversation. I was enchanted by Nira’s story of leaving London and sailing through France with her husband Alan on a remarkable adventure that ended in Agde. I am always inspired by people brave enough to ‘set sail’ as it were. We covered many subjects in a short space of time: the house, Agde, the Canal, our families, our children, Margaret Forster and bicycles. And much to my delight, Nira offered me a bicycle for my trips along the canal.

Sat -Today Alan brought the bicycle – as you can see it is beautifully sleek and pink. Alan stayed for coffee and inspired us with fascinating tales about the house and its many reincarnations. Very kindly he later posted a map of cycle routes along the canal for me.

map

-Tonight I rode my pink bicycle for the first time, through the town and along the path by the river. It was just a practice run - early evening, sparkling water, tidal breeze turning the leaves and grasses silver in the sun – it was an evening painted by Monet. Now he would definitely have approved of my pink bicycle!

5 comments

The Windows of Agde

2009
05.17

Posted in France, Lists, My Writing, Places | 5 Comments »

blue-window

I cannot live without windows. Who could? But for me I think they have a special significance. I seem to notice them, sometimes more than other people. A throwback perhaps to my years spent in prison where the day was often elusive. I would occasionally come out of the prison and someone would remark on what a beautiful day it had been. Only then would I realise that I had almost no knowledge of the day outside, beautiful or otherwise – that I had instead been consumed by the interior world of the institution and both it’s physical and metaphorical darkness.

In our beautiful house in Agde (where incidentally, ironically some might say, there are bars at the downstairs windows) the southern light falls from windows of varying shapes and sizes. Some are oddly placed but all are set in the deep stone walls, under wide lintels. Many belong to homes that no longer exist and have become part of new structures, the ever changing arrangement of houses and streets in the old town, where behind its windows, time hangs in layers of stone and lace waiting to be revealed.

house-window

All windows are here: there is no uniformity, but there are long shutters, both open and closed, peeling pastel paint, balconies and iron balustrades, geraniums in pots, washing hanging out to dry, children looking down on the street below, men in vests… another list is growing…notes to myself, rather like the photgraphs I’m taking – all briefing notes for future writing and poems.

many-windows2

Writing about windows had made me think – ‘How do I know what I think until I see what I say ?’ (E M Forster via http://lifetwicetasted.blogspot.com/ My thinking tells me that my love of windows is about much more than being starved of light ,all those years in the prison. It is about the need to always see the world out there – to let it call and entice, to let it in, full of its possibilities, new places, new journeys – one of which I am on now…

dark-window1

I think it’s about liberation and not about prison at all and I notice my Private Investigator in my new novel feels the same as me!

…Beck faced the windows. They were the best things about the place; tall sashes with decent wood slatted blinds that overlooked the street below. Perhaps he would move things around so that he faced the windows. So he could look out not in. He would prefer that. He hated the windowless rooms he’d inhabited in various prisons, the migraine inducing, airless, offices without light…

5 comments

The Canal du Midi

2009
05.12

Posted in France, Lists, Poetry | 5 Comments »

cdm-path3

On Saturday I took a beautiful walk along the Canal du Midi. When I came home I wrote a simple list of the things I saw.

I am, as I mentioned in my very first post, a great fan of the List. When I was travelling in the eighties I kept a journal but often ended the entries with a free flowing list – capturing the places in its objects and in my fleeting impressions.

Here is my Canal Du Midi list:

pale clover, flag irises, thick green water, silver shifting grasses, boats too old to sail, half sunk, battered, peeling paint, freckled butterflies, Plane trees -spotted with age, holding the banks for centuries, a family picnic, pink bindweed, voices indistinct sucked into water, distant clank of freight, birdsong, mallards, nightingales, washing on lines strung between trees, shuttered house barely seen, open vistas to the vineyards of early summer, filtered sunlight, dogs on the pathway, bicycles, walkers, fishermen, mad-eyed young men, smiles, Bonjour Madame, bright new boats parting waters, diners aboard under neat umbrellas, dreadlocks, henna, where salt water meets fresh, the green Herault.

And from this list came my poem (still in early draft) – the words, ‘ come and live with me on the canal Du Midi,’ kept echoing round in my head as I walked

Nice Idea Honey

If I asked you to

come and live with me on the

Canal du Midi

in a boat past sailing

under plain trees dappled

with age

come…and live with me

among pale flowers

irises and bankside washing

in the distant clunk of freight

where voices muffle in

the green Herualt

if I asked you, you would

say nice idea honey but…

If you asked me to

come and live with you on the

Canal Du Midi

by the vineyards of early summer

with the nightingales, fishermen,

dogs, and mad-eyed young men

if you asked me to buy a bicycle and flee

I would say nice idea honey but..

what if, what if this,

if that – what is free-

it’s a nice idea honey- nice,

that I can ask you-

because I know

you will never ask me.

Here are some more pictures of my walk

cdm-washing

cdm-laburnham

1 Comment

Writing Heat

2009
05.10

Posted in France, My Writing | 1 Comment »

Agde street and blue sky

Friday

It seems crazy writing a novel set in the North East of England in the middle of winter, while languishing under intense blue skies in the south of France in temperatures rising into the eighties. But somehow it’s possible and I’ve already got twelve thousand plus words! The writing is hot.

In order not to overheat I’ve been writing in the cool belly of the house – the kitchen, inside the thick stone walls of what was once a bakery – and then coming up for air onto the terrace. Often there is a cool breeze here and we can now plug in laptops and kettles thanks to a carefully rigged extension the lead as long as a house.

To remind me of winter weather I am using my weather diary which I kept from January to March – no more than a few lines a day just enough to keep my characters bathed in fog and ice – while I wander through the many markets of Agde.

There are markets here on Sun, Wed, and Thurs selling everything from: fresh produce of every kind see lickedspoon for mouth watering photos, to modern clothes, basket ware, jewellery, leather goods, soap, hats, shoes etc and then a brocante: (flea market) with lace, linen, cutlery, glass, ironware, vintage dresses, fabrics…..the French adore their markets.

My new novel is about a former prison governor, reluctant Private Investigator (he’s minding the shop for a friend) called Danny Beck – whose office is above an Indian restaurant at the back of the Quayside in Newcastle – it’s a thriller, a suspense novel so it needs to be fast moving – the pace has to be hot.

I’ve been thinking about this novel for some time now, writing fragments and trying to uncover the characters and the story. This is something new for me. In the past I have tended to steam straight in and sometimes had trouble digging out the story. Perhaps being short of time (due to my work in the prison) compelled me to work in this way. Sometimes I think I was afraid that if I stopped to think I would never write again because there was so much else to do. Now it’s different and all this thinking, slow cooking and sun seems to be paying off. What’s more I’m beginning to feel at home…….

Antique clothes - Wed market

Basketware - thursday market

2 comments

In The Bar Casa Pepe

2009
05.09

Posted in France, Places, Sport | 2 Comments »

bar-casa-pepe

Tuesday evening

The Bar Casa Pepe welcomed us – there was a special welcome – including drinks on the house – for Sean who wore his Arsenal Shirt and scarf. The four or five locals, all men, although one or two women made brief appearances, were sympathique – after all Arsenal boasts three French players and the god-like Arsene Wenger.

As Sean’s harem – three equally partisan women, we attracted some attention, but it was all good natured. There was the man in the orange t-shirt who shook hands with everyone in the bar and then ordered a take away pizza which was delivered by a young man on a scooter. There was the rather strange little man who wanted to talk about rude things! and then Madame who appeared from out back and once over the initial shock of seeing a strange women sat at her bar talked away to me about her love of yoghurt and her diet of salad, potatoes and the occasional banana.

We drank beer, followed by cognac and café in petite black cups and saucers- all very stylish but then that’s the French for you stylish and friendly -despite what people often say about their difficult stand offish nature – it’s not my experience.

It was a good night! It would have been a great night if only the Arsenal had won …

1 Comment

Where The Seagulls Speak French

2009
05.09

Posted in France, Places | 1 Comment »

The roof terrace

On the roof terrace of The House With The Stone Door – Number 11 Rue de Haute – Agde – you can sit and gaze up at the swifts gathering before dusk, darting in circles across a still blue sky. Seagulls, stand sentinel on the tapestry of thickly curved tiles, and call in a language I don’t recognise. It is definitely not the language spoken by the seagulls I grew up with in Somerset, nor those I’ve heard further north.

I guess they are speaking French.

Speaking in French is something I’ve managed little of as yet but it is only day three (Monday )of two whole months, so there is time. The man in the Papeterie where we bought exercise books for writing in, spoke English. When he knew we were going to be around for a while he said we must only speak French in his shop. He will speak English and we will speak French, this way we will both practice. It’s a charming idea but I’m not sure how much paper, post-it-notes, or how many pens and pencils we will actual be needing.

To get to the roof terrace you have to climb, several high and narrow, wooden staircases and four stone steps set into the original medieval city wall. Once there you can see beyond the green of the Herault river to the trees that line the Canal du Midi, (where I will be walking every day, well nearly every day – once I get going that is – soon!), then into the far distance to the pale, shadowy hills of the Haute Languedoc.

The air is very clean. You can tell by the deep yellow lichen on the roof tiles.

The air is made for writers- warm and inviting, drifting in from exotic coasts, over wide seas along ancient roads. I can tell, because I’ve already got eight thousand words of my new novel onto the laptop! (More of that later.)

The house welcomes us with its spacious kitchen, it’s deep stone walls and glazed tiled floors, but I am still finding my bearings. Just now I feel strangely, although comfortably, out of place. It is as if I have stepped out of my life into another life entirely. Rather like the time, more than thirty years ago, when I set off with John and our friends Nick and Sue to travel the world for nine months. Travelling does that to me – shifts my space, slows me down, so I am quieter, more thoughtful, more accepting and more appreciative of the small things: about as near as I ever get to being in that truly zen place.

The door into my room - my room is small, mainly whitewashed with grey stone lintels - it has a blue light and the atmosphere is very zen

So there are many good spaces in the House with the Stone Door – on the roof is just one of them- peaceful and meditative – but also just a great place to catch the sun, drink wine and cloudy pastis, read, write and catch the delicious smell of Debora’s cooking wafting up through the house

– all the things we came here to do – oh and speak French with the seagulls, of course…

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Avril Joy

Writing Junkie