The Obsessive Diary

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In my favourite place in the world, life is pain au chocolate writ large by morons with bombs and the floured hands of boulangère who rise before dawn. The Magdelane card I pulled was Gaia, all belongs, and black smoke clouds Middle Eastern skies and the scent of baking drifts upon Mediterranean air. The jasmine is out. The jays have multiplied. We hear chaffinches and collared doves. Yesterday a buzzard lifted off from low oaks to rise carefully above the burnt woods; the blackened trunks now decorated with green, it’s been three years since the fire. Margaret and I have come out to furnish the cottage which sits sentry like at the bottom of the drive; what was once all darkness and damp has become, like its big sister, light-filled - a silence that encourages listening. Opening the door for the kitchen contractor he said, si calme and I replied, Oui, comme un monastère. My favourite place in the world has grown.

We flew out, M & I, on Saturday, an early take off that brought with it the usual fret about missing the alarm, the taxi not finding us, needing the loo mid journey. The whereabouts of passports checked fifteen times between kitchen and terminal, carefully planned 100ml fluids in clear plastic bags meeting notices to say the rules had changed. There’s not many people I can travel with, but M is one of them. On your right, on your right as we enter glorious human theatre; off the shoulder sweatshirt and click-clack nails, sculpted brows unmoving with one eye kept on a matching boyfriend in black. M & I have known each other so long that all it takes is a look. She told me about the influencers arrested in Dubai for mistakenly filming the war. There’s a Netflix film in there somewhere.

In the queue for immigration which took forever and involved much tired cursing of Farage and Johnson a pet was shunted in its box straight forward under the straps which funnelled us in snaking lines; the owner, a middle-aged woman with regulation hair kept her nose in the air and eyes forward, daring us to judge. There was confusion when a uniformed official announced an abandoned bag and we all looked at the plastic casing with holes along the side, the strange heavy quiet emanating from it, and said to each other, who would forget a cat? When its owner stood at the high perspex she spoke fluent French enough to get a laugh out of the officer and the box tipped over on its side with a weighted thump at her feet and still no sound came.

The silk kaftan from the plane who’d enjoyed every inch of our conversation wafted three rows ahead. The perfectly rounded skull as big as a basketball with features the size of a child’s hunched in slow progression, an occasional profile revealed precision beard. We huffed and shuffled and cursed Farage and Johnson and sourced the scent that had followed us all morning as coming from M’s coat; no delicious notes of Frankincense rather the sprayed message of a raggedy Tom who makes nightly visits to my kitchen. I’d heard him in my half-sleep yowing his arrival and so used to it, thought nothing, but M’s trench coat had been hung ready on the raised handle of her case and with it the scent of her own cat and whippet. Derek meet Mousey & Twig, and if perfumers could capture the pervasiveness of his musk you’d only need one dab a year. Oh how we laughed.

To happy work of getting the cottage ready, we hit the ground running with lists - market / IKEA / bring from house. Two years ago, (or was it three?) M, S & I went down to what was the wreck of a shell, the building containing half a century of another family’s life and death, the walls dark, the air musty with fever. We’d opened the door carefully and switched on our merkabas before crossing the threshold. None of us wanted to turn right along the passageway to the darkened bedrooms beyond. In the death room, shutters bolted against July heat, we placed our tools; a bowl of water, flowers, salt, a candle and incense - this witchery we worked together without speaking. As we moved we all felt it, the web of sticky plasmic staying, the stuck and not letting go. It covered our faces, swept along our skin, clung to our backs and brought the hairs up on our arms. We chanted and lit and said prayers. We left the candles burning.

What change since then, in not just the dimensions of La Petite Souer but echoing through each inch of my life. Nothing looks the same. Everything feels different and she, the little sister of the big house, is dancing. Light-filled and faces washed, rooms expansive and love bouncing from terracotta tile to the ancient oaks which still reach their arms above her, she is reborn. If anyone’s in the mood for a very pretty cottage in southern France in which to vacance, let me know…

We managed swimming and backgammon and Ramatuelle. The tennis courts market on Sunday morning brought the joy of a budget and furniture I would normally pass by. We found barrels for tables, and Buddha thrown in, a bargaining in my poor French produced Habitat chairs at a knock down rate. All this arrived and was placed, a happy dolls house play of furnishing from which we stood back and admired our work. A transformation, and not just her. Six months ago I was here alone on a writing retreat unaware that a phone call was coming that would, in New York second, change everything. Six months ago I was still living according to an eight year plan that stretched a lifetime ahead. There has been half a year of grieving since, a season of rage and sorrow. All belongs says Gaia, and these last few days that truth has settled. All belongs.

Eleanor

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Due to a slight tech situation, the end of our conversation was cut off. But never fear! We jumped on zoom, and here it is:

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First thing’s first:

I will be LIVE in conversation with (First and Last Woofter), the one and only Patrick Gale, Thursday 3pm UK. It’s his first foray into Substack, his maiden interview here, and being a lifelong devotee of both the man and his work I’m slightly beside myself that it should be me who gets to hold the stage. For those who know his work already, come with your questions. For those who’ve yet to discover one of England’s finest novelists, where have you been? He’s our very own Anne Tyler, our Cornish Elizabeth Strout and in Love Lane, we’re back with Harry Cane…. I’ve already told him I may well spend the entire hour telling him how much I love him. It’s also more than likely that we’ll drift into whippets…

Now, for the diary….

I ran out of oil. In 30 years of living at the farm, this has never happened. The AGA went out, the heating died, there was no hot water. That was Monday, which we’ll return to, but first, Mothering Sunday which saw me and Margaret exchanging rage-filled, tearful voice texts about the lack of flowers, messages, texts, phone calls, thinking ahead, any planning at all by our offspring while avoiding (me) and raging at (her) instagram which is designed to turn even this most ancient of existences into a competition from which we all emerge scathed and seething. All it takes is a daffodil we cried to each other as decades of snot and teething and temperatures and dropping everything to hold knocked us over. As the waves of love and exhaustion took us under. As the scent of freshly baked bread made us wonder if we were the only ones noticing, and the driving and cooking and cleaning and love, (did I mention the love?) made us shout Why only one day?

I’ve a thing about these man-made celebratory dates; Mother’s Day, Women’s Day, Valentine’s and Christmas. I can’t help but feel they’re a happy falsehood of care, (“We celebrate you, don’t we?”) and a straightforward system for keeping us in our place while making money out of it; a coercive control producing flowers once year to make it all right. They make me wild. And then there’s instagram. So M and I in our voice message exchanges tried to be very mature while failing and I thought of all the friends who’ve wanted children and never had them, who’ve lost children, who’ve lost mothers when they were young for whom the day is so much worse, and hours ticked on and I went for a walk and then this happened.

S turned up for some farm R&R with a friend, and they each brought armfuls of flowers and telling me I’m the best. And then B sent a message so full of love and care it made me cry, instantly plus has it arrived yet? which it hasn’t (whatever it is) but the thought mended everything. And J stepped up to help me yesterday (which we’ll get to), turning up with flowers and just what I needed. And then oil ran out.

At the kitchen table yesterday, the place from which I’ve run a commune, married twice, brought up twins and written four novels I suddenly and all at once could no longer hold it all together; the farm, the estate, the parenting and career. Last week I met with AW for an editing meeting which we ended with a quick tarot because, why not, we are both warlocks of a kind, and the last card I pulled was the Ten of Wands. You’re holding too much, he said. You need to put something down.

And at the kitchen table when I could no longer hold it together, S put her arms around me and said, your mum died, and your relationship ended and J&B left home and you’ve a book coming out and it’s no wonder, it’s a lot, you need to put something down. And then the oil ran out and I thought, Okay. It’s a sign.

I have moved to London. I picked up the keys last week and moved boxes from my mum’s emptying house yesterday. Last night was my first night in my new flat, and obviously this is confluence of happy timing is no coincidence at all. It was time.

J turned up with flowers and all hands on deck for a day of logistical boxes, parking, keys and lugging mattresses upstairs. We went to the Tall White House and rescued 1970’s cutlery and 1980’s saucepans, and the cups I gave my mum with the handprints of her grandsons made in the pottery when they were small. We sat on the floor while waiting for deliveries and imagined his travels to Vietnam. We ate lunch at a place on Portobello, marvelling at the ease of being in London, and made lists of things I need; kettle, water filter, everything. And after he’d gone I unpacked boxes.

As the bubble wrap lifted from the glasses that had once stood in the high white cupboards of the dining room out of reach, the distinct scent of Cinzano drifted up to meet me. And as I looked through a bag with my name on it, tissue paper revealed a tile from Cluny where, on our long drives through France, my mother would always stop. Hello Ma & Pa. You are here and so am I. A flat in west London, the part of town where I lived with Margaret 30 years ago, long before the farm, and children and marriages and books. I've returned to the ‘hood. A new chapter begins.

Eleanor

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“Books are radical technology” said Louisa Joyner on the Main Stage yesterday and although London Book Fair can sometimes feel like the slick debut from an Enfant Terrible; overly wordy and as pleased with itself as all hell, I’m with Louisa. Reading is an act of protest and rebellion and books are the latest and oldest in the fight.

The watchword at every talk seemed to be libraries, especially on the PEN stage which was less doused in entry-point, evergreen and content viewing habits than the bigger spaces where Netflix sat alongside Penguin Random House and reshaped this sacred act to fit an industry-language modal. Fascinating as those key notes were, it was PEN where I found the literary activists; the publishers, writers and librarians that felt like home. I found myself drawn back there again and again, up the metal stairs with the bannister rail that unnervingly stopped and started, and steps strangely carpeted in beige, a pace along the balcony and random dive through the swing doors, a glance at what was on and often getting lucky with a seat. But let me take you by the hand to the beginning, of walking in through Olympian arches on Day One.

I met AW, SB & JN for breakfast. Tea, and tables moved to fit us all, in a little cafe a minutes walk from the venue. Already we were talking in that way when industry professionals get together, like an AA meeting meets falling off the wagon, therapy while happily digging ourselves deeper; to have found myself in a career that involves what I would be doing anyway for free is what makes this writing life such an excitement and a heartache. We care and we cannot stop. I spotted others at other tables, the conversations to come of nods and negotiations; LBF hasn’t always welcomed the writers, it is, primarily, for the publishers and all who sail with her. LBF is where deals are done. Or rather, relationships are cemented, as these days many deals are already in the bag before early March rolls around and the hurried, harried faces of agents have been hurried and harried already non-stop since Frankfurt.

I was feeling peculiar as we stopped at bag check, the river of this certain type of us; large glasses, decisive boots, crumpled suits having carried us across the Hammersmith Road and down the wide side street to ribbons herding lines. Was it a rogue wave micro dose (they happen)? Or just a complete lack of sleep (weird dreams and 3 am wakefulness)? Or the sheer impact of Olympia in full book fair swing, massive and crowded and What’s On boards only adding to the sense that whatever this was, it was already Too Much? I decided to adopt the festival stance of old; a refusal to take in maps and timetables or any planning whatsoever, a commitment to let the flow take me. And take me it did.

It’s been two days of bumping into people I haven’t seen in years - a random stop in a quiet spot to eat my salad and who should be beside me but C who I haven’t seen since the Festival of Writers back in 2017. An aimless left and right and hey presto I found myself at Salt and the lovely Chris Hamilton-Emery who gave me my first deal. Standing up from his table, about to go and literally at the one beside, AG from school who now works in distribution. And without any meet me there or see you here AW and I managed to coincide not only events but seats next to each other repeatedly. When you catch the current, the overwhelm of crowded places with too much choice becomes a simplified matter of not worrying what else might be going on. Yesterday, tired and wondering if this really was enough now, I took an empty chair at someone else’s table, got talking to the someone else who turned out to know exactly who I need to call to get FALLOUT into prison libraries, an idea born of attending the PEN event on supporting targeted communities. It went like that, each leaning to feel a little lost straightened by some fantastically coincidental connection that said, no, keep going, you’re in the right place.

JS and I had a thoroughly lovely catch up in her very busy day, both work and personal, we sat on quilted stools near the Main Stage while she refuelled, and parted with a hug; her to relentless rounds of meetings, me to find what next to inspire my day. And have I mentioned the large glasses, decisive boots and crumpled suits of this uniform of choice? In the queue to the toilets I met my favourite, an eavesdropping heaven between a New Yorker in neck brace, pink teddy boy shoes with black flames snaking, the largest glasses possible, and a face intent on living who’d zeroed in on the woman behind her (and in front of me) who fielded this cultural cross over with quiet, respectful Britishness despite the feeling coming off her friend to meet eyes.

All this and more; the urge to pour my tea over the balcony onto heads unexpecting, or the screams of did you see that badge? by young things unsure if Buy My F*****g Book was approved messaging for LBF. Michele Howarth I can tell you that it went down a storm.

And of course, the joy of CB in Empress mode, and FALLOUT there on the shelves and up at Turnaround, of people talking about it, of it out in the world and how it really does take a village to raise a book.

All of this is a joy, as was last night when we skipped off to the Stable Group party. I could only stay for a small slice, and we looked forward to meeting again in NYC. A small slice because it was a Substack gathering night, too.

The best for the end? Maybe it really was - I always imagine I won’t know a soul but even in the doorway writing down our names on sticky labels, there was JF, and on entering the room upstairs a delight in finding PW and a host of others and the chatter and love carried me from one Hello! to another. One of the speakers told of how this place has radically changed his life for the better and that’s me too. I know we sound like evangelists, but Substack saved my writing life and I’ll never tire of saying it. So thank you Farrah @Substack Rosie Gee and Emma Rowley for hosting, and brilliant discussion led by Emma Gannon with Abigail Bergstrom Jess Pan and Mark Diacono . The room was half-filled with those not here yet and I hope it inspired them to join in. Writing is radical technology and Substack is where rebels come to play. There can never be too many of us.

Eleanor

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

Morning all,

Just a quick head’s up for all those thinking of going the Hybrid route.

In line with London Book Fair happening all week (and yes, I’ll be there, might even do a bit of LIVE streaming…), my Substack LIVE guest today will be Stephanie Buck, creator of The Hybrid Publishing Toolkit.

Join us with your questions and pens at the ready 6pm tonight (GMT) plus listen out for the special discount offer for orders before 31st March.

Subscribe now, and keep your eyes on Notes for the live link. Stephanie’s done all the hard work for you….

Eleanor

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Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eleanoranstruther.substack.com/subscribe

It was a train ride to Gladstone Library which began with a complicated shifting of luggage and repacking awkwardly in the back of my car in an echoey London NCP where always something is dribbling over the concrete floor and wafts of urine meet the sense that a car chase or attack is imminent. They are look-over-your-shoulder scary, city carparks, especially the ones underground. From there, suitcase artfully repacked leaving pinstripe trousers and gold boots and taking my heavy blanket (we’d been told it would be cold) I walked to Euston past city tents and felt regret, and foolish that I could have, that morning, written a post about stress. This is stress I thought passing the flapping tarpaulin rigged up on high pavement wall and had the urge to edit my post and then thought, No, why do I need to tell the world I’m embarrassed at my loss of perspective? Why not just correct it internally? Which I did.

Waiting for trains, watching the faces craned to the board is one of my favourite theatres; I love the coffee in hands, the suitcases each has carefully arranged, the muted conversations and loud. A pair of women to my left, familiar, comfortable, off hiking. A father dragging a daughter across my vision, he, harried and looking for something, she, dragging her feet, pink raincoat, brown curls, more interested in her hands. I thought, where’s her mother? in that automatic way for which I chastised myself; maybe she didn’t have one, maybe this was divorced dad’s weekend, but minutes later dad and daughter washed up beside me with mum and brother, Spanish, talking rapidly, mispronouncing Tring and repeating platform numbers until they left in a hurry, children continuing to drag.

I got travel sick during the two hours to Chester, I realise now it was probably this bug coming on, but the swaying of the high speed and my attempts at working made the carriage swim and the drowning fields outside become my anchor. All was wet and glistening mud as the south became the midlands, horses up to their fetlocks, heads dropped, hedges scarred with winter, ploughed acres of flood plains and one lonely chestnut leaning for its friends in the distance. I am against postwar crop farming methods. I am saying that for the record. There’s no need to till the soil or rip oaks away from each other. As we sped towards Crewe and Churchill’s cry to dig for your country laid out a tattered land of fences and fertiliser I wondered how long it would take for humans to recognise en masse that we can talk to trees.

Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, and yes that’s THE Gladstone, who lobbied repeatedly during his four terms at the top and sixty years in politics for Welsh home-rule. Who read so many books that, broken down into timescale, would have meant he’d have had to have read a book a day from the day he was born to the day he died. So we’re talking multiple books started and finished in a day. While being Prime Minister. I realise there was no BBC iPlayer in the 19th century, but still.

I won’t break the privacy of the writers who gathered for our inaugural meeting, this was Day One of Kit de Waal ‘s 6 month writing course, but I will say that it was a joy to connect, loving and inspiring and wholly heartwarming, and yet again I experienced the truth that everyone carries with them stories of complexity and fascination, and humanity, these strange animals we are, is impressive in its drive to see the light and make something beautiful of it.

I walked in the graveyard before we all met, searching for the earliest grave and found it, a child, 9 months, in 1733, her headstone a cracked carved slab leaning brokenly against church wall, wet with moss and dragging leaves, her brother lying flat at her feet, 18 months, no name. Within the church as usual the urge to also lie flat overtook me. I breathed. Empty churches never stop telling stories.

An early walk in the rain to the castle, primroses and slipping banks. Breakfast. The last to arrive with L having got talking and forgotten the time. We worked, we learnt, we said goodbye and shared taxis to the station, me and M & W, I sat facing the retreating road and again, travel sickness snaked up my gut and made me hot with dizziness, Chester station arriving just in time. W & I talked all the way to London, the journey delivered in an easy chattering share of our lives, what joy. Some lads in the seats behind us called out, has anyone got scissors? I’ve gum in my ear, at least that’s what I thought he said, and had visions of poking and blood, until he called out again, I’ve gum in my hair. This, I could deal with. Of course I had scissors, tiny gold embroidery ones carved with fishscales that belonged to a friend of long ago and have resolutely slept in an inside pocket of my bag, ready for this moment. No one was more surprised than the boy when I stood up with them in my hands. He leaned his head toward me, this young lad, his friends laughing, the clump of his chewing gum hair held out for me to cut. Don’t cut too much as if this was a hairdressing salon on the high street and not a north western railway hurtling south. Hold still as the carriage lurched. His friends thought it hilarious. He retreated with the hair gum strands in his hands and I watched him feel for the hole in his neat haircut, imagining the mirror and going out tonight and girls.

My journey didn’t end in London. Back to the car and scary underground carpark, onto the road for the farm. It was no wonder Saturday was a blur and Sunday the sick bug came and took me. I think I rode on Monday. I definitely dragged my feet about the kitchen and repeated I don’t feel well as if this would override the stuff and nonsense approach to illness that I have been brought up with. I cancelled lunch with F on Tuesday, making it to zoom for therapy in which I cried and ranted and raged and felt an inch better until I had to muster myself for London again when I wondered what what would happen if I threw up on the 13:21 to Waterloo.

Amongst this, with the full moon, Margaret’s four-legged girl died and Samson and I lit a candle. To the Happy Hunting Grounds, with love.

Moronic tendencies kicked off another round of such world madness it’s a wonder straight jackets are not flying; this I was shielded from until I finally looked at the news and spoke to A who told me her brother in Dubai is sleeping in his car in the basement.

Meetings, unavoidable, and more chattel collecting at the Tall White House. A discovery that no one had claimed the whizzy-whizzy chair on which I spent so many hours spinning. A discovery of the triple disc Womble Album. Help packing the pheasant crockery, my new flat will have echoes of the past in it after all. Coffee with A and a quick cup of tea with K. And last night, in preparation for my conversation with Essie Fox: TALKING THE GOTHIC , Queen of the Gothic tomorrow on Substack LIVE, I took myself off to the Electric for an immersion in Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights. I’ve a feeling Essie will have quite a lot to say about this. It’s rich and theatrical and plays roaringly fast and loose with the text. It’s a feast and I loved it, loving Emerald Fennel’s eye already. It’s as sexy as it should be, as sexy as the book and just as tempestuously windswept and epic as the moors. The sound track is great.

In a packed auditorium set with sofas and armchairs and coloured glass table lamps I ate popcorn, feet up, awash with Cathy and Heathcliffe. Around me Young People put their phones away. A girl in silver trousers got one last selfie in with boyfriend directed to kiss her. The girls beside me in identical glasses and baseballs caps took off their hats and settled in with pints of Stella and chips. When the movie closed, I was the first one to stand. Outside, a group clustered, eyes wiped, It’s going to take you a long time to be all right, said one to another. Grief and rage continue.

Eleanor

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