My space - at last!

 

Today is a good day.

The sun shines brightly and warm in a cloudless blue sky. Not as hot as in other parts of Europe in this blistering heatwave, for sure, but a pleasant 25C nonetheless. Certainly hot enough for me.

Outside, there is peace and tranquility. Butterflies flutter aimlessly past the door, bees flit clumsily from bloom to bloom - not too many in this place, not yet, but it's coming. The grass is green in patches, bare in others, and freshly cut this past weekend: I need to get some lawn feed and nourish it. All in good time.

In the distance, I can hear the constant thrum of traffic on the Warsaw by-pass, the A2 that leads away westward to Pozńan and beyond (unless you branch off a couple of kilometres from here and head southerly through Wrocław to the Czech border, and on through Austria to Croatia and the warm and clear Adriatic deamlands. Or an hour's drive further, and branch off north towards Gdańsk and the Baltic coast). Eastward, beyond Warsaw, the road heads off to Lublin and Białystok to the conflict lands of Ukraine and neighbouring Belarus.

But here, where I sit typing on my battered old Lenovo ThinkPad, the traffic noise is no real distraction: it's simply background, like the dog occassionally barking nearby, or the roar of another LOT Dreamliner blasting off for Chicago or Seoul from the main runway of nearby Okęcie airport. There goes one now.......would that I were onboard!

Instead, I have the beautiful sounds of The Nutcracker Suite from my Music Library on my laptop to soothe me as I write this piece. When it finishes, perhaps I'll switch to Vivaldi's Four Seasons, or maybe Frank Zappa. I'll see how I feel.

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I am at my działka.

I've written of it previously, how much I enjoy it - an oasis of green peace and tranquility away from the hot and sticky and polluted city centre. Away from the confines of our apartment, where the only greenery is on the balcony planting boxes and the courtyard garden four floors down, overlooked by all my neighbours and I.

Much as I love it there, here there is more space. I am surrounded by trees: many pines in neighbouring plots, and fruit trees - apples and pears, mostly - and on my own plot, towering over the roof of my cottage, a productive walnut tree, with the green cases growing fat and juicy now, to drop in October and provide an ample supply of nuts for Christmas for family and friends.

The front and back boundary hedges have grown tall and thick, almost overgrown - certainly in need of a good cut-back: my job for the weekend. The tall yellow sunflowers are everywhere, here and next door, and the roses, planted by the gate last autumn, are beginning to bloom nicely. The rhododendrons by the cottage door are some way from bloom - probably next season now, they are relatively new plantings - as are the freshly planted lavender in the corner. Next summer will be beautiful.

It's a good sized plot, I can't remember the square metreage - but enough for me to handle anyway. Unlike my late father, I'm not much of a gardener, no green fingers, me. But it is all we need. There is a nice cottage here with a good brick patio before the doors, all built and installed new last summer, and wintered in nicely. This spring and summer we've done much work to improve the flower beds and get the place how we want it, and we're pretty much there.

It's an oasis we can come to at weekends, potter around pruning and weeding and watering the plants and mowing the grass, or relaxing over a good barbecue and cold beer and a good book. Or just sitting and enjoying the sun. A place to escape to. And the bike ride, a 16km round trip, does me good too.

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My music has moved on to Swan Lake now - Tchaikovsky was a wonderful composer: the music matches perfectly the gentle surroundings here. Perhaps I should move to Beethoven's Pastoral next instead......

It's clouded over a little now, but that is ok. I'm not here to work in the garden, nor to sunbathe (though I could do both quite happily). Instead, I'm finally - after three or fours years' good intentions unrealised - using the cottage how I've always planned to use it. As my creative space.

I have a pair of glass-fronted bookcases overflowing with the best part of 20 years' worth of purchases to read and re-read, and hopefully inspire me. I have a fridge with food and drink (note to self: must get some beer, there is none). I have a comfortable settee I can sprawl out on if the Muse deserts me and I need a break from writing.

I have a solid wooden table to work at, and an old office chair that makes this as close to an office space or library or study (all the terms can apply) as I'm ever likely to get, now. It's fine. I can do my thing here, with minimal interruption: for a start, I do NOT have an internet connection here (unless I use my phone as a mobile hot-spot, which I am avoiding....).

It's what I've wanted, yearned for really, through these depressing Covid years. Somewhere to get all these ideas and thoughts banging around inside my skull into something resembling coherence. Work on my memoir - which means thinking about sixty odd years and events and people, crises and triumphs, good times and bad, and putting it all down so that, before I croak, I can give it to my kids and say, "there you go, this was me...". Re-write the novel (again) and maybe publish it one day. The same for the short story collection (that I need to add to).

Or simply sit here, and watch the world go by, planning where to go next when money allows, or just letting my mind go blank (something I've been told frequently is close anyway) and let time drift.

I'll take all of that, thank you very much.