So, the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend went thus...
The film of X Files was awful. Even bigger and better special effects than they can afford on TV could not disguise the fact that it was a nothing of a film. They had chosen to centre on the aliens-from-outer-space-conspiracy theory for the plot but they couldn't put too much into it as you'd then spoil the continuity of the TV series. They'd have been better with an ordinary paranormal episode.
Sunday was a lazy morning. I made it to Quakers where I continued my meditations. There's a lot of thoughts been rattling round recently and I don't pretend to be able to make too much sense out of them yet. Mostly, it's been about love and God and whether or not the two are synonymous as, for example in the George Herbert poem Love bad me enter. All around me, whether it's from Margaret in healing, or from Quaker Notes and Queries, or from the Revelations of Julian of Norwich, I keep hearing the message that I have to listen to my inner voice. Except that sometimes I am told that I have to listen instead to Love and sometimes I am told that I have to listen instead to God.
In the afternoon, Ross and I took a trip to Lee Valley Park out by Waltham Cross. Gill first took me there for years ago and I went a couple of times with David when he was ill and I was trying to give him some fresh air and comfort and I went once with James when I was mourning and he was grieving the end of his first love. So, it's a place with memories for me. We walked alongside the River Lee Navigation for a while (much weeded over) and then cut in besides the Bird Sanctuary, past the Seventy Acre Lake and down to the birdwatching hides. We held hands and chatted and saw some amazing iridescent blue dragonflies and a heron. We went into two of the hides. I was hoping to see a vigorous shag but was disappointed.
Back home, I had a chat with Rod in Seattle by telephone. There's some doubt about whether or not Dale will be coming to London now as the airline he should be travelling with has pilots who are on strike. This poses a somewhat insurmountable problem. However, Dale was in Wisconsin so Rod and I talked opera instead. I also tried to ring Chris in San Francisco. However, whilst the eight hour time difference was no impediment to my speaking with Rod, Chris was still asleep. I promised to ring back but it went out of my mind.
Instead Ross and I settled down to watch The Fruit Machine. Luckily we had also
watched Some Like It Hot last week so he got a few more of the references. I
seem to be providing him with a faggot's guide to cinema at present.
And so to bed... We decided on George Michael as background music. And, to be
truthful, it was also cover music as there was a gathering of young folk next door
and we didn't want them to be unwitting eavesdroppers as they congregated in the
back garden for their communal aromatic cigarettes. So we shagged and Ross shagged
me. He is obviously getting better as he wants to shag me more often these days.
This is fine by me. Ross is the only man I have met who I am comfortable being
shagged by. Anyhow, we did the biz only I somehow managed to (audibly) come
between CD tracks. A plaintive voice from below said "Well at least someone's
having sex". You see why the cover music was necessary.
Today, we headed off into Kent - my car is a wonderful thing - not all cars you understand which are foul and polluting - but mine is very wonderful. We simply picked a spot on the map near the salt marshes opposite Canvey Island which had an RSPB Bird Sanctuary sign by it and went there. Blissfully tranquil. More walking hand in hand. More chatting and being together. I garnered an amber coloured flint from a farmer's field and picked dried grasses from the hedgerow. It was hot and it was lovely being away from things for a short while. We tried to go to Rochester (and there seems like a lot there to look at) but it was Bank Holiday and not a parking space to be had. There was, however, at least one gorgeous lad who I nearly crashed the car over and Ross agreed that it would have been worth it.
On the return journey, we stopped off in Thurrock to go to Lakeside Shopping Centre,
ostensibly for something to eat. I haven't been there since
Colin took me
shopping for pans and got hot under the collar
about the hoards of buffed young men strolling around. Well, they're still strolling
and maybe it was that lapse of thought that allowed the call of
the shops led me astray. I bought (in a three videos for £20 HMV special
offer) Total Eclipse, Bullet and Peter Greenaway's Pillow Book,
which Ross and I went to see back in November 96,
and a vastly reduced pair of Ciro Citterio jeans, which Ross says make my bum look
exceedingly grabable.
Oh, and I bought an electric fan. They're all being sold off cheap because the shops
over-stocked assuming it was going to be another warm summer. So, I was well pleased.
We've passed the evening by watching Total Eclipse (thank God I didn't pay full price for it i) is as bad a film as the critics made out, ii) contained very little Leonardo nudity and iii) had been cut to remove some of what there was judging by the stills I have seen on the Net. So, pah. Then we watched the adorable Diana Rigg on TV in her new vehicle The Mrs Bradley Mysteries - a 1920s-set country house murder mystery. Some lovely frocks, some stalwart performances but it wasn't really very good.
Ross is in bed now listening to Gormenghast. I'm here trying to piece together the past few days. A year ago we were on holiday in Sitges and we were oblivious of Diana's death. So much has happened since then and yet we are still, in a different way, together. I'm listening to Thomas Hampson's Walt Whitman recital. In front of me are the grasses, cut and displayed in a green vase, and the piece of flint. Maybe it does all add up.