I’ve been looking at my jottings again, and honestly, I don’t really know why I do write notes because I rarely remember why, or what I meant by them. When I used a notebook and pen or pencil it was bad enough with my illegible handwriting. Now I make notes on my phone and although legible they are often unintelligible. Sometimes it’s because it’s a small screen with a tiny keyboard and my flat thumbs (flat not fat) sometimes I’m walking along as I’m trying to jot, sometimes I’m rushing, sometimes it’s just carelessness which I don’t notice, and sometimes it is all a mystery.
I wrote this on the last day of our recent Welsh writing retreat, when we were on our way home and we stopped of at the small town of Laugharne, on the Carmarthenshire. It is on the estuary of the River Tâf, and of course anywhere in sight of water excites and inspires me. We didn’t realise, although we should have done, that it was the home of the poet Dylan Thomas for several years. He lived in a small cottage – well, a tiny cottage, overlooking the river. It is now a tiny but fascinating museum and tearoom, and we took advantage of that! What was even more inspiring was a boathouse which was his writing room; visitors can only peer through the glass doors, which we pressed our noses against. I think this is what caused me to jot:
The boat house – oh this is wonderful It’s got water It’s got views It’s got hills we’ll never climb! To write, to think, to seek and maybe find! Oh this is just a hut but just, just, just –
We left the cottage and the boathouse, and meandered back and as usual I was dawdling along behind, and I must have seen a figure ahead, who then seemed to disappear, because I wrote:
Oh has the person vanished? Where is the person? Was there a person, did I imagine it? He, she, they? And a bench with a handy defibrillator
It was a steepish path, so maybe the defibrillator was placed there in case some eager Dylan fan over exerted themselves. We wandered some more, before continuing on our journey home reflecting how fortuitous it was that we had stopped there, just by chance.
Our first ever writing jaunt together was to Lyme Regis. – then we were four, but now we are only three – however we still call ourselves the Lyme Four. I finished these few jotted notes with a phrase which sums up the odd, interesting, and fortuitous things which seem to happen to us – The luck of the four!
Lois Elsden 