Last days in Eigesund

Blog: last days in Eigesund

All hurrying and hastening, scurrying and whimpering, swept into another place, into a hidden cupboard! No longer needed or heeded. (I’m having fun playing with words here, but what has happened in fact is that a great quietness has filled me and the dancing words inside my head have settled down ...)

Evening: I sit beside the window, outside the sky grows silvery pale, the birds tweet intermittently, the wind has dropped. This afternoon on our walk we heard a cuckoo, loud and clear, a brash call. Six times repeated, then no more. Later I saw, tiny beside the pathway, three violets, glowing in rich colour. Haven’t seen any for years. I stopped and gazed, and remembered Luther, who (recalling my A-level History and Bainton’s Here I stand, biography of friend Martin) apparently wept over a violet frozen in the snow. Top marks for Luther, I told David. We went on to discuss the 95 theses on the church door of Wittenberg, the Protestant Reformation and the Counter Reformation, and the Council of Trent. This was all quite strenuous, but enjoyable.

It would be too boring to recount our meals, but I have to say, they are excellent. Almost Vegan, varied and colourful, a pleasure to behold and to consume!! Happily, we both enjoy cooking, and something I love to do is bake bread: there is a timeless quality that hovers over the activity of kneading dough. I always knead for at least ten minutes, singing or reciting poetry. This unquestionably contributes to the final result. I have been baking the loaves here in a hot-air oven but tomorrow plan to heat top and bottom and see if this will produce a more crispy result...

Now it is almost ten p.m. Still light enough to read. David and I have been wondering about travelling up to the far north of Norway (memories of Nooit meer slapen, Hermans’s novel of which I translated part, many years ago...) to the land where it stays bright till midnight. It’s very appealing and we’ll probably never get the chance again... Something to be discussed on our return to Stavanger.

I heard that schools in Norway may be re-opened next week. The lockdown is easing here. After these days away we’ve half lost touch with the pandemic news. But all too soon we’ll need to consider our next move.

For now, I rejoice in the airy laciness of the trees, the viridian of the young leaves (soon to darken) and the air so clean and fresh, every time we go outside I want to gulp great draughts of it ... before returning to the city.