Dreams last night of American cousins I have never met. Something to do with a steep, small hill covered with rushes and nightfall. Needing to catch a bus. A late night shop amongst dream trees and grasses.
Took a walk with Em tday from Shoreham to Bramber, to see the remains of the castle there. A hot day, summer-like, though the shadows cast by trees had that autumnal depth about them.
The countryside around Shoreham is pleasing. Wending our way up the river, sunlight split by clouds, interrupted by passing cyclists, the need to watch swimming dogs, and the constant checking of the map. We didn't actually need the map, but using one while being on a walk is pleasing. Strangely old-fashioned, ghosts of childhood fantasies of living in the wilds, plastic-compass myth and the imagined joy of sleeping under skies.
I felt far from the sea here in this landsape of inland water. The September-clarity of the light combined with the brightness of the day to invest the landscape with an air of dreamlike unreality. Somehow this got caught up in thoughts of the painting I began yesterday. The painting is strange in itself, or rather my reactions to the paintng. It seems to be turning into some kind of structure under a bright blue sky (I tend to improvise paintings and never plan. This advanced artistic technique is also known as 'making it up as you go along'). Afer an hour or two of working on it, it started to seem madeningly familiar - a memoy I culdn't place. More lke deja-vu than anything else. The painting gave me the same emotional resonance as those recurring dreams I have of sunlit, flooded landscapes, and that accompanying mixture of intimacy, nostalgia and srange triumph. There is something arctic about the painting too - or something that made me think of the arctic, but it is a bright, snowless arctic... and I am also put in mind of January too, those clear, well-defined Jauary days. The paintng somehow seemed a reflecton of all this, and it ccurred to me that I was painting a landscape that was sideways from wherever you were.
Somehow the painting had leaked into the walk.
Looking across the fields from the bank of the river, the countryside had that oddly revelatory feeling that always accompanies deja-vu, echoes of a forgotten dream that linger deep into the day.
We soon reached Bamber. After Brighton, it seemed strangely deserted. So used to the endlessly busy roads and the endless busy sea, the quiet here seemed almost eerie.
Tere isn't very much left of Bamber Castle itself. A few stones scattered about, but there is a rather impressive looking column of stone. Moving into the shadow of this column was interesting. The air grew somehow deeper, and it suddenly seemed very busy. Ghosts of old rooms and fires, and people moving about. Like being in a crowded and dark room, but oddly traquil as well. The imagination is a powerful thing, and castles -any old buldings really- are potent triggers for that imagination.
This fleeting impression was oddly overwhelming.
We caught the bus back from Bramber, winding through the forgotten suburbs of Brigton and Shoreham, small parades of provincial shops and stores; badly punned hairdressers, radiator traders, windows of washing machines and charity shops collecting for causes I had never heard of.
It took an hour to get back to Brighton, and we fially arrived at about 6:30pm. As we stepped off the bus, time seemed altered. It seemed somehow ealier, both in the day and the year.
3:00pm in August.
A side effect of inland water perhaps.
