Author Archives: essiep

The Intensity

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14°C, started bright, but it’s drizzling now.

Sore muscles

Ride later: but perhaps I need a rest-day. Various muscles ache, need stretching or steadily burn a bit: hamstrings, quads and trapezoids. Another muscle is giving trouble too; the one that beats against the wall causes so much damned trouble.

I’m going away now to s t r e t c h.

Leonard Cohen, "Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye"

 I loved you in the morning
Our kisses deep and warm,
Your head upon the pillow
Like a sleepy golden storm.
Yes, many loved before us
I know that we are not new,
In city and in forest
They smiled like me and you,
But now it’s come to distances
And both of us must try,
Your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

I’m not looking for another
As I wander in my time,
Walk me to the corner
Our steps will always rhyme,
You know my love goes with you
As your love stays with me,
It’s just the way it changes
Like the shoreline and the sea,
But let’s not talk of love or chains
And things we can’t untie,
Your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

I loved you in the morning
Our kisses deep and warm,
Your head upon the pillow
Like a sleepy golden storm.
Yes, many loved before us
I know that we are not new,
In city and in forest
They smiled like me and you,
But let’s not talk of love or chains
And things we can’t untie,
Your eyes are soft with sorrow,
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

Is this how it works?
On Youtube, Solimorphus wrote:

when i was a boy i adored this man with a kind of desperate infatuation
which, i guess, stems from loneliness. now that i am a grown man, and
have a family of my own who love me, i feel we are kind of friends who
meet very occasionally but have an intense relationship regardless.
maybe one day when i am old, and there is no love and hope for me in
this world, i will finally understand him.

Beautifully put; there are writers making gracious contributions on YouTube.

Whatever will…

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19°C, Dry, it’s been a beautiful looking day.

How is this all going to work out?
The open threads, they ought to lead somewhere. When we get there we ought to be able to look back along the threads and see the story spread out in front of us, back across time. Even those threads that lead nowhere, or were just not followed up could be visible. We can journey in only one direction, but at least we can look in the other. If we look.

Crass! Life doesn’t have a plot. The only thing I do know, is that I weigh 14st 1lb.

norepinephrine, adrenaline and glucagon

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20°C, clear, warm and still; Cycle 64.8 miles.

Feels like the last day of summer; the air is warm, smells sweet and the sunlight warm. Any passing clouds reminded us that the autumn is only so far away and there is little growth in farmland apart from those rich velvety berries glimpsed within hedgerows.
Feels like I could go for ever on that bike, just like last Sunday, no tiredness, no lapsing into poor cadence, just rolling mile after mile, comfortable, unstoppable.

I’ve got work to do, I’m relishing it because I feel more alive than years have seen.
The fronts of my arms have picked up an unfamiliar scent. It’s not mine, but a startling and welcome surprise.Smile

They heard me calling.

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17°C, calm.

Crane Fly: one flew in through the gap in the curtains this evening while I was painting. He flitted his strange legs against my shoulder then tottered off in another direction, I wasn’t sure that he knew how to work the direction controls.

Albinoni (Von Karajan)

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Evening, music to paint to

Turpentine: Restarted the portrait as decided at the 60 mile point yesterday. Unfortunately, I can’t show this one, so I’ll talk about music instead.
Albinoni: Adagio in G- cond: Herbert Von Karajan.

My copy of this is on LP, bought second-hand in about 1990. There was a glut of classical LPs as people "upgraded" to CD around that time. They were all in beautiful condition, clearly fastidiously looked after by previous owners. Anyway, Adagio in G is a well known established piece, but this version is magical. It has all the power, tension and swings in rhythm that carried me away this evening. I was so moved. It left me gently shivering at the end.
Luckily the next few pieces on the first side are good too and follow on well: (the Vivaldi :Concerti for Flute and Strings, and Bach’s Orchestral Suites). They both fit in on well so let you back down to earth by the end of side..

I’d better to, I have that slightly sick feeling in my throat from the strong smell of turps in this room.

88 miles.

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19°C after the rain stopped and the sun came out.

Cycling: Niiice long ride at a fast pace. I only came home because my concentration was fading. The roadspeed was steady- a comfortable but quick pace even once the tiredness came on. My eyesight became slow, and that is bad & unsafe. My legs were happy to continue but I really could do without any injuries from crashing right now.
Five hours of cycling is quality thinking time. Some decisions are made, some are just clearer. Mind you, the last hour usually turns into a fudge, as your body starts to run out of calories.
The portrait I started yesterday is just too big, that may mean getting a spirit soaked rag and wiping it back. Drastic but not a problem at this early stage.

September sun

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19°C, still air, 30% cloud

Beaudesert: returned there to enjoy the sun and draw in sweet smelling air. The ground was very wet, but the route did cross a lot of springs just below a ridge. Dragonflys buzzed the pond, but I couldn’t get a focus on him with my camera. That is the only disadvantage with the Sony R-1, compared with the Canon SLRs (for example), apart from that, pictures come out remarkably clear- with almost crystalline sharpness. The R-1 was the perfect choice (but you can’t get them new anymore).
I finished the day with a delicious German beer and jalfrezi/curry made by me.
Can you sense contentment coming from my direction?


Painting (Turpentine): got off to a good start today.I’m trying to be more methodical with this one, no leaping in and hoping to clean up afterwards. Portraits are more critical, this one is bigger than my usual A3-4. To reduce the risk, do the groundwork first and use first class source material- (good quality photographs).
Tired: well not exactly, but sleep has been poor this week. Today feels fine to me, there is lots of energy in my legs so tomorrow I intend to get physically exhausted (guess how Wink).

All new to me

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Poetry: is all new to me. Some of you will think this is no big deal, but I’m reading Noël Coward’s "Collected Verse" and now Thomas Hardy’s "Selected Poems".
It’s new to me, it feeds a need in my life right now. In those moments of introspection, which can be quite short, a passage of prose is just the right  dose.
Thomas Hardy initially seems more difficult of the two, but I am sure I will get used to the language. A colleague lent me this copy today, she must have had it since college days as it has been annotated throughout. I love annotated books, second hand books are great for this. Thanks Sarah– I will look after it.

Coward made his living as a song-writer but he says he made an effort to move away from the rigid rhythms and write more freely in his prose. I am really quite excited by all of this; the fact that just a page can hold a thought, one that deserves to stand on its own- not part of a plot or scene. It’s really something, something powerful. As I have said elsewhere, there is a universe in the little things, those often overlooked and deserve close attention. These small pages with a few hundred words do the looking in close-up.
It’s been over ten years since I read any poetry- and that was Spike Milligan. This life is changing (hold on, I don’t have any others).