Clare's entry:
MY PLACE
I inhale as I step across the threshold – traces of incense, ozone, and clean linen – a heady mix. Amber pads in beside me and settles with a contented sigh onto her blanket in the corner.
I reacquaint myself with my surroundings – white painted floorboards, simple square wooden table and two blue director chairs, walls adorned with paintings, poetry, collages and shell pictures, a small cupboard for crockery, and of course, my little stove and kettle.
Running my fingers across the rough surface of the whitewood table, I carefully lay down my notebook and pen.
Flinging open the shutters, I drag a chair to the open door, take a deep breath, and sit. Just sit. And stare. Take in the amazing view. The waves are rolling in today, and the sound of the current pulling back on the shingle vibrates through my being. The mournful cry of the seagulls overhead, as they circle, looking hopefully for a brave tourist carrying any sort of food, reminds me it is lunchtime.
But I am not hungry. Not for food anyway. I just want to lap up this atmosphere. It is never busy here even in the height of summer, but at this time of year, Amber and I have the whole area to ourselves, apart from the gulls.
The wind is quite strong off the coast, and the white horses leap and froth. The winter sun tries gamely to spread a little warmth across the wooden balcony, casting shadow patterns on the cream and blue shutters.
The grassy slopes stretch from the quiet road above, down to the promenade below. The peace and inspiration I find here is worth far more than that I could find in expensive spas, retreat centres or hotels.
My beach hut is My Place.
Zena's entry:
In my mind I’m on the island. I climb the dusty path up the wooded hill, past the little shrine which glints in the evening sun. Cicadas sing in the bushes and trees, falling silent as I pass and chirring again as I move on. I pause to look down on the roofs of the shrinking village and catch my breath in the hot, still air.
As I climb higher, the trees thin out and I walk over dried, grassy ground littered with rocks that snag my sandalled feet. Near the summit I stop. The chirring seems to be the air now, filling every crevice so that I’m breathing it, part of it, becoming it. It smells of warm stone, herbs and leaves.
I stand above the world alone, everything in perspective. Far below, the houses of the village are a white brushstroke in a broader landscape. An arm of land shelters them, stretches into the sea, a harbour curling in on itself, and a ferry boat leaves the island, a soundless speck laying a white trail across the water. Far distant, the grey peaks of the mainland lace the horizon above the glass-still turquoise sea.
Goats leap on the slope above me, their bells a tympany to the cicaca chorus, as I sit on the time-smoothed ruins of a stone wall and sip red wine warmed from the climb.
The sun hovers on the horizon and I know the old man is waiting patiently at the foot of the path for my return, ensuring I’m not lost on the hill in the dark. As dusk falls I breath the clean air, feel the warmth and permanence of the ancient stones, and I feel safe.
My mind is filled with peace and calmness.
Geoff's entry:
Repugnant. That might be the muttered or bellowed word of choice if fellow Alphas dared to enter my writing place. They might suspect it of being staged and suggest that nobody would dream of trying to create anything amongst such chaos. They’d be wrong of course, because here I am sitting slap bang in the middle of it hammering out my Challenge 8 entry.
So, does this cluttered landscape enhance my muse in some perverse way? Not in the slightest. I loathe it. The seventeen slain ants left over from a rather frenzied email-checking session this morning are about as conducive to writing as the encrusted turmeric that will need soaking from the side of one of the strewn tumblers encroaching onto my mouse mat. You see? That sentence was far too long but, quagmired by looming paraphernalia, my craving for space strangles any notion of revamping it.
There’s a stapler which I never quite manage to refill, a couple of alarm clocks requiring batteries, three extra watches with assorted spare straps and five guitar strings pining for a guitar… all queuing up to vie with Challenge 8. Ah, I’ve just noticed a very important jam-jar load of multi-coloured elastic bands which would snap through fatigue should I ever dream of stretching them. Not forgetting the tin of old keys that have probably outlived by decades whatever doors they belonged to.
Please, dear reader, don’t mark this entry down for irrelevance. This is where my previous 7 entries were forged. The imminent levelling of this wretched hovel may save my mind and inadvertently my marriage before Challenge 9.
And yes, there are exactly seventeen mangled ants. If only the obsessive compulsive counting could be swapped for an over-tidiness disorder, I’d make a clean sweep of the Alpha league table.
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