When I am troubled...

When I am troubled I like to walk. Whether it is ten minutes stroll out in the Gardens in my lunch break or forty minutes tramp going homewards, it clears my head and lets me breathe. I feel my shoulders relax and my head go up, my legs seem to stretch out as I move forward, and suddenly I find I can reflect calmly on things that stress me; work falls into perspective, plot problems sort themselves out, and poems begin to stir, and I see colours that make me want to grab a brush and paint for hours. Solvitur ambulando, as someone said, back in the days when they spoke Latin rather than scratching their heads over it - I think it was one of the Church Fathers. He was right, anyway. It will be sorted out by walking.

Today I think I need to walk home; not just for the head-space it gives me, but also because a colleague brought in and distributed some fabulously rich home-made Indian sweets this afternoon. Gajjar Khe Halva, yum; but goodness knows what the calorific value of two slices was.

Yesterday it poured for a lot of the day. My brief walk at lunch was one of pungent wet smells and cold air, my umbrella catching on things, branches reaching under it to slap my face. Today it has turned hot and sunny again and my lunchtime stroll was full of flowers and birds chirruping, and dry, resiny late-summer scents. Most of the time I love the constant contrasts of the British climate, but sometimes I am baffled by them. There must have been a good ten degrees temperature difference between yesterday and today; and the forecast is for another chilly wet day tomorrow…

Off home now to eat warmed up lentil moussaka and get on with the next fairy tale. I don’t know what it says about me, that I’m writing fairy tales at my age. But they are what comes, and I go with it.