Housekeepers Diary

Yesterday. Pancakes sprinkled with cinnamon and an early night reading A Year By the Sea to see what age will bring to a book I read a long time ago. A bedroom scrubbed from top to bottom as if I am busy clearing all I have been hoarding in my head. Two hours sitting on my bed storming my brain with fine tipped pink felt tips in hand. Charts and plans and lists finally on paper. Order of sorts. Delight when I happen across a little vintage something I had long forgotten! Shopping the suitcases under my bed for a breath of fresh air throughout the rest of the house.
Today Spring. Cheery red primulas in the back garden. Back to the library. Because I used to go and then I stopped because the Kindle was the most infinite of hand-held book-lined corriders. But I miss the silence. I miss the space. I miss who I used to be when library visiting was a ritual followed by a visit to the deli for good cheese and salty olives. I miss sitting scrawling down poems I would not have found by myself. Explaining the mysteries of the computers to befuddled old ladies and, yes, the sense of community not to be found in my own living room. I miss it all. I miss who I used to be. Though I barely expect the library to take me back to her.

Then a coffee in one of the many coffee shops that keep blooming in my little town. Flicking through my library haul and people watching. Later a stint in the kitchen. Home-made Cornish pasties and a ginger and banana loaf. The ingredients already arranged on the kitchen counter in anticipation of my return to the alchemy that is cooking. Two boys giddy with excitement about Kung Foo. Me shrieking like a woman completely out of her mind. Boys laughing at my dramatics.

Library books, cake and order of sorts.