“There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.”
Salvador Dali
Participate at Snape
A piano concert at Aldeburgh’s Jubilee Hall in the morning, a participate workshop in the afternoon, then a chance to watch the BBC Philharmonic orchestra rehearsing. I love living on the Suffolk coast.
Seeing Giant has given me an idea!
I was probably the only person watching Sarah Abliss’s opera Giant, who unlike Charles Byrne, want to be placed on public display after my death.
Range anxiety
Buying an electric car has made me realise that if Leiston had plenty of public car charging points, visitors to the Suffolk coast would come and spend a couple of hours in the town while they charge their EVs.
Margaret Catchpole
In 1847 Richard Cobbold wrote a story based on the life if his mother’s servant. It became a best seller, because he wrote about what he knew, and wrote well. I don’t know the subject of my next book as well as Cobbold knew Margaret Catchpole, so must take my reader on a journey, so that we can find out together.
A tale of two cinemas
Both Leiston and Aldeburgh cinemas are independent, both are run on a not for profit basis, but although just four miles apart, they cater for very different markets.
Role reversal
I’m rather proud that Belinda is now the entrepreneur in our house. Her jewellery business is growling, as more people come to value her creativity, and I’m happy to sit quietly researching my next book. Our future looks bright!
A Suffolk retirement?
I spent a captivating evening at the new Castle Community Centre on Framlingham, listening to Suffolk writers describing why Suffolk is special to them.
On my doorstep
I hope we never take for granted how lucky we are to live just three miles from an arthouse cinema that shows National Theatre live performances.
Happiness is new for me
I’ve never allowed myself to celebrate my successes, but this week, with two milestones passed, I might just manage.
Home is wherever I hang my hat.
I like wearing a hat, but when I met someone I know wearing his, I did not recognise him!
It’s not all bad!
There are many places worse than Leiston to live. But if you’ve always been here, you perhaps don’t appreciate how lucky we are here.
I’m supposed to be retired, but . . . .
It’s tragic that people are swayed by nasty posters like this. Luckily, there’s a brilliant charity I’m now working with, who use facilitated conversations to challenge racism and prejudice.
Belonging
I’ve never felt that I belonged, and have preferred always to observe and often write objectively about what I see and hear. But Leiston is different, and I keep meeting interesting people with strong connection to my past, and more often then not, to Belinda’s family, who have lived here for generations. I think I might have finally arrived at the place I need to be.
I went to church yesterday
Blaxhall church features on the cover of my latest book, and I was happy to accept an invitation to attend a communion service. But when it came to actually taking communion, I felt unable to go up to the altar rail so stayed in my pew. As a Quaker, taking communion would somehow not have been authentic.
New uses for old buildings
I’ve been exploring Snape Maltings, with my friend Peter and his camera! This is the video we produced.
More tea vicar?
Our new home, Dunn’s Barn, is a few yards from Leiston church, and yesterday we met the vicar for coffee and conversation. The church and Quaker Meeting House face similar challenges, being costly to maintain and with too few turning up on Sunday mornings.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
George Bernard Shaw