From a Life Being Quietly Lived

In which the writing begins to be more simply done.

Audio version

Sorbus Wisley Gold

Saturday 12th October

Today was going to be Ness Gardens, at Sarah’s suggestion. We thought so anyway. Though I also knew I’d be happy to spend the day writing and walking on my own if we didn’t go there. Which is how it turned out. Each of us leaning on the forecast of “an afternoon of expected rain” to agree not have the day out that would have distracted us from the pursuits of our own we were keener on doing, at least for today.

My own intended pursuit being to “maybe start that post about this becoming more like a journal that I’ve been thinking about.” Which is what you’re reading now. Only a half formed thing in my brain on Saturday morning but something I’d thought might well include some reflections on Quiet itself, and how it’s going now, three months since I started it. As well as whatever else my brain might have ready for me once I started the writing.

So this is all that. Begun, as ever, by walking my brain’s vague thoughts and ideas around the city.

Saturday morning began as the third sunny autumn day on the run and the light that morning was beautiful. Shining so low in the sky the October sun had me taking photograph after photograph as I walked around. The phone barely back in my pocket before another beam of golden light would illuminate another memory I wanted to make sure I’d captured. From an October soon to be gone, with the sun already diminishing from how it had been by early afternoon as it turned out. Because the darkling days when the clocks change are almost here now.

While the sun was still high as it was going to get my walking had taken me along Ullet and Princes Roads to Toxteth Library. My favourite, I think, of all the city’s libraries. It’s next to the Anglican Cathedral and a bit of a cathedral in itself, to me. Sacred, good light, usually fairly quiet. I’d gone there to take back three books I’d borrowed that hadn’t worked. It happens, but I won’t say what they were because their failure was probably more about me than the books. Having earlier that week decided to take a break from my “read all of George Eliot’s books in one go” project after I’d read enough by the one author for now on the fourth of them, The Mill on the Floss, but then not been able to get going with anything else capable of following it. Partly, I suppose, because George Eliot’s writing is so incandescently good nothing else compares. Or simply because all the new ones were unwise choices as follow-ups? Certainly none of them had been set in the early to middle nineteenth century where I’d been living and reading comfortably for my several weeks with George Eliot. So I took them back and chose three new ones. That being one of the many beauties of public libraries. The freedom to take books back, with no blame attached or costly refunds to stand there and bargain about. But I have made sure that one of the new ones is set in the middle 1800s, just in case.

So I walked off up Windsor Street, secure and optimistic, on my way to another regular and favourite place.

Toxteth Library: “A bit of a cathedral in itself”

That being Squash Nutrition¹, back along the same street, where I’ll often call in for a cup of tea and a sit on a Saturday morning walk. This time I also began the first of the new books, that Field Notes one in the photograph². Which went so well that by the time my tea was drunk I’d already and promisingly got further into it than any of those I’d just taken back.

Moving on I walked in and out of the Dickens Streets, through the Welsh Streets, across the Avenue to Granby, and then into the parks. Thinking about the Quiet stuff I wanted to include in here.

Which is this.

That, three months since I began it, I’m enjoying the writing of this Quiet much more than the several versions of blog writing that long time readers will know preceded it. Feeling like this new and unhurried place, with all the old stuff cleared out of it, is suiting the age, the interests and the pace of me very well. Except for one thing. That although I’m not writing on here all that often, coming up with a new subject for the blog every time feels pressured and, therefore, like something I could do without.

And I think I’ve worked out why. Which is that this version of the blog doesn’t need to have a different subject each time it gets written. In fact it might even be a mistake to think of this as a blog at all. Because really it’s a journal.

“Quiet: The journal of a life being quietly lived”

Which sounded so simple, true and straightforward to me, as I was walking along that I stopped as soon as I could, got my phone out again and changed the more rambling paragraph I was using to explain Quiet on Substack, to exactly what I’d just thought. To see what it looked like. Which was perfectly fine. So, job done, Quiet now is simply a journal of this later time in my life. The things I’m doing and what I think about, along with the pleasures and occasional problems of these years. Just that.

I have been writing in a journal much like that for a good while now³, early in most mornings being when I do my clearest thinking about days just gone and what’s to come. But that journal’s not been this one, so far. As I was treating my blog posts as a separate sort of writing. But I think if I take out the shopping and to do lists, and other bits I might decide are either just too personal or simply trivial to publish on here, then having the one journal, the one place for me to write in and to select and edit these Quiet pieces from, well it might very well do. Let’s see.

So that’s what I’m doing, this post being the beginning of it. The first go on here of Quiet as a journal, of a life being quietly lived.

“And the light was beautiful”

Sunday 13th October

On a dry but cold next day, in layers, scarves and coats, we went to Ness.⁴ Sarah’s been a member of there on and off for years, me with my gathering horticultural interest, for just over a month. I’d thought I might go frequently on my non-driving own as it’s technically possible to go to Ness from Liverpool on various public transport routes. But the one time I’ve done so far, delays and cancellations both ways resulted in the sixteen mile journeys taking me over two hours to get there, as well as another two hours to get back. So yes, I could have got to Birmingham or Sheffield Botanic Gardens and back quicker. So on Sunday, like I’ll guess will mostly happen, we went in Sarah’s car.

Transport moan over, Ness is though worth the bother of getting there. In fact with the zeal of the recently converted, and having been with trained horticulturalist Sarah to several others Botanic Gardens over our decades together, I’d say Ness compares well with the very best of them. Though it hasn’t got the glasshouses of, say, Kew, Edinburgh or Belfast, well none of them are situated on a long and glorious south facing hill running down to the Dee Estuary with views all the way into the Welsh mountains. So there.

At the moment I’m just getting used to the shape and the contents of the place, with Sarah showing me round, like on Sunday, in a teacherly sort of way. Which is much appreciated, now I’m slowly getting to know the names and whereabouts of individual shrubs and trees, even as they change what they look like through the seasons. Sorbus, Sequoia, Acers, Liriodendron and others I could just about walk up to on my own now, now I’m starting remember their whereabouts and make my own paths around the place. On Sunday the many sorts of Sorbus and their berries (they’re a national collection apparently) were like an Autumnal Festival on their own. A deeply satisfying day then. And an education for me to take back to my own gardening apprenticeship at our allotment here in Liverpool. Because while much of what works in a huge garden like Ness won’t transfer to the small-scale plot of land I’m caring for, some things will. Like, I’m thinking, some of their smaller clump-forming grasses. Soon to arrive at the plot we have once I’ve decided which ones⁵.

“On a dry but cold next day we went”

Monday 14th October

I haven’t mentioned my heart yet this time (and thanks as always to all of you who are asking how it’s doing, your asking and caring is much appreciated). The practical update is that I’ve now had the down the throat behind the heart Trans Oesophageal scan I mentioned last time but not had the results yet. “Stoically content” being how I’ve decribed my feelings about it all to a friend who’s asked after me this morning (thanks Liam). Meaning I’m being careful but nevertheless going about my usual activities, content with and reassured by the NHS’s measuring and constant monitoring of me. And the fact that my heart hasn’t done too much unusual for a couple of weeks now, allowing me to get on with stuff rather than just sit around worrying. I still think surgery on my malfunctioning valve is on the way, because that’s what my cardiologist is telling me, but my instinct is it’s not going to happen this side of Christmas. Which could all change, depending on events and results of course. But, stoically content, I’ve decided I’d rather plant bulbs and think confidently about grasses for next spring than let the condition of my heart dominate my life and my writing. Meaning I’ll give these updates a rest on here, for now, until and if anything significant happens or changes. But thank you all for asking.

“Broadcasting from home”

I’ve Been Reading and Listening

Two strong recommendations to finish.

For reading, and despite my George Eliot pause, I’m still going around recommending her. Specifically, this month, her first full length novel “Adam Bede.” Different from, set earlier than, but enjoyed just as much as “Middlemarch” and therefore also in the ever expanding and probably never to be written down list of the best books I’ve ever read. A northern and rural story where, as the author says at one place, canals are still the height of industrial progress. It’s another six hundred pager but with such a strong sense of place and time it kept me thoroughly engaged and intrigued all the way through, so that, as I said earlier, I’ve had trouble finding what to read next.

For listening and because I’m feeling this has turned into a long enough piece of writing for now, here’s one song that, if I failed to recommend it now, it would be another year before I could recommend it so relevantly again. The song is “October Sun” by Oisin Leach, from his album “Cold Sea.” So lovely is the song it came all the way round that sunny walk with me last Saturday morning. Sung out loud? Probably. But here’s the official version.

Next time then, and all the times afterwards I’m thinking, there’ll be more from Quiet as a Journal. Things being done, stuff thought about, things read and heard as well as memories, reflections, opinions and, like in any life, the unknown events I don’t know anything about yet. Like in a story.

But for now, that’s all.

Listen again here, if you like.

“An Autumn Gleaning” by Sarah Horton.

1. Squash Nutrition, Windsor Street L8. Café, shop and all round good place.

2. “Field Notes From a Hidden City” by Esther Woolfson. The city is Aberdeen and even if the book is the “fireside read” Richard Mabey’s middling review calls it, well it’s seen me through my after Eliot wasteland.

3. Using a journalling app called Everlog. Simple, practical and I’ve been writing in it for a year now. Overcoming my previous prejudice about all proper writing having to be done by hand

4. Ness Botanic Gardens. A joy that’s even worth the public transport drag of getting there and back.

5. With Sarah’s agreement, it’s been her allotment for over twenty years after all, I’ve been doing all the plant selection this year, which has been a privilege, a joy and an education.