Sunday blue flower

Last night's storm battered this old house; pelting rain slashed against the windows and hard-dripped through rotten-soggy crevices in the wood. The middle of it saw the rain halted and an unexpectedly loud quietness; at the time I was not sure for how long it would last, not that I cared; I was relishing my cocoon. Instead I focused on the wind that shook and rattled the canopy of leaves that like an oversized pond surrounds the top floor of the house, that separates it from the bottom half. Briefly I could pretend that I was an island and needed nothing, nor anyone else. While the wind-leaf current rippled around me in a vaguely-strangely-soothing way, I listened even more carefully: My blood coursing through my arteries and eardrums; the ocean foaming over the rocks and on to the battered beach.

I spent most of the evening in the bath, reading and sipping on a squeaky clean white wine glass of sepia coloured sherry. I had run a deep bath of hot foamy water as protection against the storm that was raking and scratching at me through the open stuck window; flakey acid-brown rust had long ago frozen it halfway open-closed.

This not so old but dilapidated home has never shrunk from putting its long thin arms around me, not even from the first day that I set foot here. Little did I know at that time just how dilapidated I was, nor how close I was to breaking down; Rome was burning while I fiddled and faffed. Neither did I know that within months I would be living here too; in love, recuperating. Broken and jagged at my edges, I was a bloody manic mess of severed raw nerve-ends.

Seven months later, mended and rested, I leave here in the morning. I'm adamant it's temporary - a new chapter needs writing, but that's all I know. Not completely sure whether this home and Salt Rock will play a further role, I heap on prayers and blessings.

The pot plant in the entrance hall: A flower is fading and leaves are dying.

My heart knows no fear.