It’s late. I’m 9 months pregnant and I just did a 14 hour day so I could clear a little desk space to spend some time on the big LOVE project – ie Notebooks. Wanted to upload some pics, but short on time and energy. This is a bit like when someone’s in a workshop and makes all these excuses for their draft before reading it. JUST GET ON WITH IT. (This is also the sort of NOTE I write in my Notebook, but going straight to screen here. Making amendments as I go – edit is on. No touch scratch of pen, paper. Sense of audience is stronger whether that is mythical or not.)

1. Woke clutching the long sausage pillow that alleviates aches due to drum stomach big as an old, creaky schooner, full of mercury, saline and child.

7. Ordered Singapore fried rice, egg fried rice, pok choy. No more prawns. Ignored tuna maki. Watched S bite into the back of a soft shell crab.

Here is a visual note of an observational walk which many readers might recognise as the path down to the river at Lumb Bank. While I was here I took a lot of notes but felt I didn’t really have anything to work with afterwards.

The overwhelming emotion I felt at the time was frustration. This helped make my notes more literal at first and then veer towards a lot of metaphorical imagery I was less keen on. However, in the end, the landscape filtered through. Being near the water calmed me. The bear I was chasing turned up in a lichen overcoat. The rush of the river hummed like a PC.