Blackberries and Blues by Sheena Wilkinson

Is August really the cruellest month? Every year the blackberries take me by surprise – no! it can’t be that time already!  I once wrote a haiku:

 Never got round to picking raspberries;

Now the blackberries are out.  

that time again

I know it’s not a proper haiku, but at the time (I was young and pretentious) I thought it deeply meaningful. And being young, of course, I imagined that I would indeed grasp at all the raspberries in my path, so that by the time the blackberries ripened I would be ready for them. 

 

That quotation from Jeremiah: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved used to pop up around Northern Ireland about this time of year, too: outside gospel halls or pinned to trees. It always deepened the Back to School Blues for me. 

such cheery words 

As a child, and later as a teacher, I hated the ‘Back to School’ promotions in shops, which seemed to appear earlier and earlier every August: a reminder that the summer holidays, once endless and full of promise, were nearly over. As a writer too, the summer has always felt different and special, as so much of my living still revolves round schools and universities. Often I’ll use the chance to focus hard on a book, freed from the term-time round of school visits, Royal Literary Fund Fellowship, Writer in Residence – whatever the year demands. 

 

By mid-August, my diary is starting to fill up with school visits, festivals, residencies and events, reassuring me that no, I wasn’t crazy to leave my sensible well-paid teaching job in 2013, and that I would still be solvent by the end of the year. There’s a particular, rather posh, diary that I favour, next year’s edition always available in a particular shop by the end of September, and by August I am champing at the bit for it, as the following year starts to offer up engagements too. (Yes, I know about academic year diaries, thank you, but they are Not For Me.) Every summer it’s the same. 

 

There's more where this came from...

Except this summer. I have barely opened my diary for months, and when I do, it’s to marvel at how fast time can go, even when the pages are empty. Of course there are a few commitments, zoom meetings, occasional online workshops, but compared to most years, the harvest is looking very slight. Even when schools are open fulltime, they are not going to want to invite and pay visiting authors. There’s an almost-finished novel draft, to be fair, but anxiety about what sort of publishing world it’s going to have to try to make its mark in dogs me more than usual. I have no need for a 2021 diary at the moment, which is lucky because the shop I would normally have bought it in has gone out of business.  

Every academic year, by about the middle of October, I would realise I was over-committed and start to write No More Bookings notes across the rest of the year. This year – well, I don’t have the Back to School blues, that’s for sure. I sort of wish I did. 

 

Lest this post seem too gloomy -- I had a lovely summer -- it's OK! 

AUGUST IS A TIME OF FIGS – Dianne Hofmeyr

London is subdued in the last heat of summer as August draws to a close over the bank holiday week-end. The pavements lack children careering down on you on their scooters. The streets are deserted. The traffic is quiet. Street markets are full of bright yellow zucchini fiori, tomatoes of every colour and fat purple figs… but no one to buy them. Everyone is away.

On my tiny London terrace under a sparse fig tree stunted forever in its pot, the pages of my book flip close and I drowse through an imagined Sicilian heat. The landscape of aridly undulating hills of Tomasi di Lampedusa …

‘with no lines that the mind could grasp, conceived apparently in a delirious moment of creation; a sea suddenly petrified at the instant when a change of wind had flung the waves into a frenzy.'

Summer in London, is not the blistering 40 degrees of Italy or France that brings back frazzled families when schools finally reopen. I savour the peace with The Leopard under my nose. Drip by drip, Lampedusa feeds me the landscape and customs of the old aristocracy – Sicily that summer of 1860 when Garibaldi arrives.

It’s not the Sicily of the five-star hotel high up on the cliff of Taomina with dramatic infinity pool and a view of Mount Etna and a wander through the tourist-filled main street up to the ancient Greek amphitheatre set above the limpid Ionian Sea.

To see Sicily the way Don Fabrizio, the Prince of Salina in The Leopard sees it, you must start with the chaos and contradictions of Palermo – the traffic, the grime, the washing hanging from balconies in narrow side streets, the scorched hills that surround it, the glimpse of sea, the architecture ravished by time and neglect, ancient baroque palazzi, interiors opulent with gold and mosaics, convents, churches and oratories on every corner reflecting Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Norman rule.

The Arabian arches of the Cloister at Monreale outside Palermo

Leopards between olive and date palms in the Room of Roger, Palazzo dei Normanni, Palermo

Close-up of the mosaic work by Byzantine artisans 

Describing a ball in one of the Palermo palazzi, the Prince savours the decaying grandeur.

‘The ballroom was all golden; smoothed on cornices, stippled on door-frames, dasmascened pale, almost silvery… It was not the flashy gilding which decorators slap on nowadays (this being 1862) but a faded gold, pale as the hair of certain nordic children, determinedly hiding its value under a muted use of precious material intended to let beauty be seen and cost forgotten. Here and there on the panels were knots of rococo flowers in a colour so faint as to seem just an ephemeral pink reflected from the chandeliers… From the ceiling the gods, reclining on gilded couches, gazed down smiling and inexorable as a summer sky.’

I've not seen that Palermo ceiling but in Noto I came across the ballroom of the Nicolaci family. The palazzo with its 90 rooms, (not unlike the maze of rooms Tancredi and Angelica get lost in, in The Leopard) makes me wonder how the nobility became so rich? In the earthquake of 1693 the entire town of Noto was destroyed – palazzi and people all lost and the town later rebuilt in the style of the day – Sicilian baroque. Of the noble families only a few remained and through intermarriage became even wealthier built on the shoulders of the tuna industry.

Ballroom at the Palazzo Nicolaci di Villadorata in Noto

The railings of the balconies curved to contain the voluminous swoop of silk and taffeta ballgowns. 

The pink-washed walls of Modica.

Under my fig tree I dream on... the salmonpink-washed walls of Modica at sunset. Modica, Syracuse, Ortygia – none play a part in The Leopard. They are names from my A Brief History of Ancient Times schoolbook. That incredible lofty Cathedral of Syracuse, the walls wrapping the Ionic pillars of an earlier Greek temple, the old Jewish Quarter close by, its narrow alleys where craftsmen still work, tinged with salt air. So mesmerised am I by the marble inlay of the ancient floor that I forget my iPhone in a pew which is later returned to me with a simple ‘Pronto’ when I call my number.

When I run up the worn marble steps from the harbour to retrieve it, my mind has skittered down another track. I think of the ancient ships arriving, the Greek sailors treading these same steps and Cicero describing Syracuse as 'the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all.'

Yes… the quiet of August in London is as delicious as a fat ripe fig, filled with the dreams of blistering islands where the sun beats down 365 days of the year from an inexorable blue sky.

But a chill creeps into the closing lines of The Leopard.  When the mummified carcass of the family wolfhound is thrown out the window, the shadow of The Leopard hovers in Don Fabrizio's spinster daughter's words...

'its form recomposed itself for an instant; in the air there seemed to be dancing a quadraped with long whiskers, its right foreleg raised in imprecation. Then all found peace in a little heap of livid dust.'   

A salute to all my past History teachers. Other books on Sicily: The Land where Lemons Grow by Helena Attlee. Syracusa recommended by Adele Geras. Any others? Perhaps from you, Sue Purkiss, since you have just returned?

www.diannehofmeyr.com
twitter: @dihofmeyr
Latest picture book: The Glassmaker's Daughter set in Venice, illustrated by Jane Ray and published by Frances Lincoln, will be out soon.

How was summer for you? by Miriam Halahmy

1. Weather..... plenty of that. I'm writing this on Tuesday September 13th and the temperature outside in my London garden is 32C. Since May we have had wet June, windy July, the hottest August on record and now another heatwave in September. I have not been short of weather this summer.

Writing at Selsey Bill in windy July

2. Health : without divulging much, this was a tricky summer with family health going up and down like a yoyo. The interface with the NHS was frankly scary - which the consultant finally admitted when presented with my timeline of ghastliness. The news on this front is not hopeful. Note to self - get even more canny.

3. The book festival : I was invited for the very first time to the Edinburgh Book Festival and nearly didn't make it ( see 2). In the end whizzed up for two nights, had a great event with 150 kids on The Emergency Zoo and the weather was boiling hot.

4, Amnesty International : I volunteered to read the work of an executed writer at the Book Festival. There were four readers and each one more poignant than the next. My writer, Delara Derabi, was only 22 when she was executed in Iran. Her poem began, 'Prison/ I want to give you a different name/ Who called you this the first time...There was hardly a dry eye - but most amazing was the audience were 40 or more people and these readings go on for every single night of the festival. A lot of people reached - wonderful initiative.

5. Writing : the summer is not a great time to write a book but I was in the middle of the WIP all summer as life veered to and fro like a storm-tossed boat. So whatever, I had to finish the book. I started on my beloved Hayling Island in windy July and at times it felt like I was walking through mud. Also, despite the wind, the sea and the beach kept beckoning me outside and away from my desk. Note to self - do not have a new novel on the go in summer time.

6. Writing - after Hayling all work ground to a complete halt c/o NHS. That was fun.

7. Then the book festival - still no writing.

8. Finally the last minute flight to a writing retreat in Greece! Yes, it was a bit far to go but I was on Methana in a centre on the side of the cliff and there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. Except write. I finished the WIP.

9. So to summarise - summer is not the best time for me to be writing a book. I like to be out of the city, travelling or by the sea or in the countryside. Beware the NHS - boy can it bite. And if you go to a book festival, be prepared to sing...???...I taught the kids a WW2 song. ( shrugs and grins). But now I'm ready to go back to school, settle down at my computer for the autumn writing projects, enjoy the world of writing and writers - well, anyway, when it cools down a bit.

Hope you had a good summer!

www,miriamhalahmy,com

Purges and Puppies - Eve Ainsworth

August has become the month for purging.

You have to picture the scene to appreciate what I mean. Summer holidays have truly settled in here. Two young children have made their presence fully known. My house is full of discarded paper, pens, books, pencil sharpenings, loom bands and small, painful pieces of lego. My garden has an optimistic paddling pool planted in the middle of it, currently collecting rainwater (I’m expecting a duck to take up residence at any moment) and two sticky siblings are arguing over whose turn it is to use the swing.

Most days I am the complete opposite of the model mum that you see on TV (seriously – does she exist?). I burn the cakes that I bake with my children (although we still have fun making them). I forget the raincoats on walks in the woods (so we end up singing in the rain) and I forget to put the lid back on the glue sticks, so creative play can be hit and miss. I am however – great at separating warring children and quite good at making up long, crazy stories that my children find quite amusing.

But the house suffers in August. Actually it looks like a train wreck.

Added to this, a few days ago I got the email I was dreading. My edits for book three had arrived. I almost couldn’t bring myself to open the email. But as there was a short break in “she had it FIRST” disagreements, I allowed myself to take the plunge.

As I scrolled through the first three pages of highlighted red text my tummy sunk. The arguing had also resumed. I clicked out of the email again and turned my computer off. It could wait.

August is not a good month.

Maybe the editing could wait? I wondered wildly if my editor would allow me to have an extension. Would a year be enough?

I decided instead to distract myself. It was a miserable day outside.  If the house could talk it would be begging for therapy. Action was required. A purge was needed.

It’s always satisfying when you do something with added energy. To actively give away/throw away stuff we no longer needed was very fulfilling. Even the kids got involved, motivated by the fact that we had a new puppy arriving in a few weeks and we needed to make things safe for him. We spent ages clearing out, re-arranging and sorting.

Within hours the house looked so much better – newer, fresher, brighter.

Later still. I opened my dreaded email again. I re-read my document and it honestly didn’t look as bad. This was just another purge. Another clean up. It was more removal of bits I didn’t need and a tidy up the ones I would be keeping. Ok, it would be extra work – but my book would be so much better for it.

The anticipating of editing is the same for me as a big cleaning project. I always dread it, I consider putting it off, I delay and complain – and yet, once I get into it I’m fine. And the after effect is always the same. Satisfaction. A sense of achievement and a clearer mind.

And next I can prepare for the arrival of Woody to our little family. Expect my next blog post to be on the ‘joy of writing whilst puppy training…..’