Busting Out

Busy evening in Cathedral Close.

Except for a refreshing break for tea with Thea at Costa's yesterday, I've been feeling slightly too cocooned in the flat and buried in the work, so last night I downloaded a fluffy escapist movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer called "I Could Never Be Your Woman," which was just the ticket. I microwaved a package of frozen McCain fries for my dinner, made respectable by pairing those soggy little chips with a glass of decent red wine from France (picked from the half-price bin at Morrisons for £4.49), and settled down in front of my laptop, the only choice for watching movies at the flat.

One of the gorgeous houses in the Close.

This morning, still feeling a need to nurture and be kind to myself, I made blueberry pancakes - berries from Spain, free range eggs from a local Norwich farm and the last of the Quebec maple syrup Sal brought over as a gift from Vancouver. I turned on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits in iTunes and felt transported (just a click away from the Word document I should be working on), getting up and dancing to the songs that compelled me to, like "Hurricane." This afternoon I hiked into town to see the final performance of the musical "Footloose" at the Theatre Royal. What a show - amazing singing and dancing! The whole audience, young and old, were standing and clapping their hands at the end as the cast gave us one last rollicking number. It seemed odd dancing by myself, but everyone else was into it, so I went along. Whoever said the English were a reserved lot? They were dancing their booties off and talking to strangers next to them.

After all that, I should now be able to dive seriously into the writing again, a process that has me poking into dusty corners I haven't visited for a long time, and likely the cause of the nervous energy and avoidance factor.

Sign of summer: Boats mooring along the River Wensum.

Given it was an afternoon matinee, I left the theatre at 6:30 pm and headed through the cathedral grounds to the River Walk, which was the right choice. The lowering sun cast a golden light over the stone houses along the Close and the wind stirred the leaves in the massive willows that line the path. It was a perfect day and a perfect evening. Tomorrow I'll get serious about writing.

Crossing the bridge at Prince of Wales Road.