Tenebrous and Decembrous

On the last day of summer, August 31st, I took a long walk over the Downs to Lewes. It was a bright hot day, and getting out into the countyside was a clear and startling relief, and I'm still not sure why. Yesterday, November 30th, -the last day of autumn- I took a similarly long walk - though not to Lewes this time, and this walk was rather accidental. I left the house at 4:00pm and didn't get back till 8:00pm. I must have covered about 12 miles,

It was already twilight when I left the house. I headed down the seafront first of all, then headed up to Portslade, then up to the Old Shoreham Road. I took a road - a long uphill thing - that took me to the edge of town. Old houses - mock Tudor style - set back from the road. Beyond them I could see the dark mass of Three Cornered Copse. Wouldn't like to be there at night. I then sort of turned back on myself down Tongdean Lane. The road twisted round on itself. Here is a lonely place. Rich, newly built houses, set in the own patch of land away from each other. Between the sparse buildings and the trees, I could look down onto the east side of Brighton.

The place was beginning to unnerve me, and I was glad to pass by the old football ground at Withdean and found myself on familiar old London Road, where I walked down to Preston Manor, and took a right up that huge slope that leads to Dyke Road, and then back onto the Old Shoreham Road and home again.

Everything felt Decembrous. A made up word of course, but the endless landscape of cold and mysterious wintry houses is summed up in it. Decembrous, tenebrous. A few trees still cast the last of their leaves down. Feverish snow. Exiled from the houses and out in the darkness I felt some kind of melancholy, both familiar and comforting. 

Another month and we'll be halfway through this decade.

Memories of 1984

It has bothered me somewhat of late that I can remember very little of what happened in 1984. I can remember things which might have happened in 1984 - but could have been 1983 or early 1985. I know what I was doing in 1984, but as to actual events. My autobiographical memory is usually very good - excellent even - but this year seems to escape me for little reason. Just as an exercise, I thought I would write down what I can actually remember happening that year - hopefully that might bring up other memories.
Background: I turned 12 in 1984, thus beginning the last year of what I consider to be my childhood. I was still living in Scotland, in Forres, and was in the first year of Forres Academy.
1) Nan's funeral. This was held a few days into the new year. Cold white light in Stone graveyard. My aunt Violet being understandably upset.
...and connected to this is something my sister said about my other aunt, Linda, who said that she could hear 'footsteps at night'. This was something overheard and naturally terrified my sister and me. We thought the house was haunted anyway. Waking up in the morning there and hearing the sound of builders, then realizing it was still night and there couldn't be builders, and being afraid of ghosts, and then suddenly it was morning and all was alright again.
2) 2000ad. I'd been reading comics for as long as I could remember, and under mt friend Coll's tutelage, was introduced to 2000ad, which I was then allowed to collect every week. This would have been early in the year. I remember later on, when it was warmer, sat out in the garden reading the latest issue. This I remember because my parents had a very minor TV celebrity staying over - the 'Cooking Canon' who had been giving a talk somewhere my parents were involved with.
3) Martin leaving. This was probably a big one. Martin was my best friend and left in ir around the easter of 1984. We had been friends for years, and with Craig (who left in 1982) had formed a ghost hunting group, whose antics had defined my childhood. I had known Martin was leaving for a year or so (our fathers were all in the RAF and would be posted every few years). I remember a great deal of dread accompanying this. Being in the woods at Kinloss with my Mum, and feeling suddenly sorrowful that my best friend would no longer be there. A windy blowy day. Mum picking up sticks or branches to use in something. I remember the day Martin left. Or rather I remember those final moments of Martin's leaving. This was at his house in Kinloss. My parents had come to pick me up, and this was it, our final goodbye... Martin stayed in the kitchen sharpening a pencil with a knife, and that was it... I remember he didn't come out to say goodbye. I remember white street lamps in a rainy dark distance.
4) Collecting a new comic called Scream, a horror comic for boys. I got all 13 issues before it stopped.
5) After Martin left I decided I needed a new best friend. I thought at first a boy called Mark might fill the spot, but he didn't seem interested in ghost hunting, so the spot was filled by John Kelly, whom I had known - vaguely - for a few years.
...the summer of 1984 is a blank... there are things which might have happened, but might not, so will have to be left empty...
6) Hallowe'en. John and me spent Hallowe'en trick or treating around Southside - the housing estate in Kinloss where he lived (and where I lived too from 1978 - 1981).
7) Mum was involved in some kind of church group - raising funds etc. I'm not really sure. Part of this involved organizing a jumble sale, to be held in some kind of hall in Forres. This meant that we would regularly get boxes of things delivered to our house. I remember that lots of these boxes had old Star Trek books - novelizations of the original TV series. I also bought newly published Star Trek books too - the same novelizations of the original series, but with new covers. It was always exciting when a new box was delivered.
8) We spent Christmas at my Grandad's that year. I remember taking only 3 Star Wars figures to play with. I suppose it was my last full year of being a child, before adolescence kicked in. I remember playing with Greedo in the long dark space behind the settee.
Not a huge amount of memories for one year, even if that year is 32 years ago. There are other vague memories as well, but I'm not sure for certain that they belong to that year or a generic 1983 - 1985 time.

Tales From Bridge 39 - The First Five Years

I have been writing here these Tales From Bridge 39 for five years now.
Half a decade! I have just read the first entry I wrote while at work, two jobs ago. I wrote of how I was staying at Andy's flat until I got my bedsit sorted, of a dream I had when I ws five, about the empty office at work, and of how I was looking forward to the walk home through rainy twilight. I mentioned how later that night I was going out for a friend's birthday and helping at her exhibition the coming Sunday.
Five years later and I'm working in a call centre not unlike the one I was in back then. I am going out for the same friends birthday tomorrow night. I am trying to organize my own exhibition.
I start to regret the scarcity of entries this year. I'm not sure why... I just got bored of writing them I suppose. The same old thing every day, but that was meant to be the whole point of Bridge 39 - that it was meant to be the same old thing... The mysteries in everyday existence. Perhaps I should start writing more regularly again.