Monday, 6 January
Waking at 10 pm when it feels as if it should be morning, I weigh the possibility that I have slipped into a parallel world. But everything feels familiar, the absence of pens on my desk when I need them, the empty box of melatonin waiting for information on compatibility with my heart medicine, the hotplate which I’m glad to see I turned off before falling into deeply refreshing dyschromic sleep. It was, and in fact still is, a peculiar day. No expected lorry arrived with longed for possessions; it’s in Sweden with failed brakes. I hope I have been given the full picture and that my warm dressing gown is not floating around in the harbour basin at Trelleborg.
First filling in the form to get myself some kind of health insurance cover here before I get attacked by a rampant septic toe or something other untoward. Then a quick visit to my self-storage unit whence I happily bear home An Gerlyver Meur, my 900 page English-Cornish-English dictionary. I am amazed that enough Cornish words are known to fill such a volume, It can’t all come from Dolly Pentreath of Mousehole, who had the reputation of being one of the last fluent speakers of Cornish (for a long time, she was regarded as the last one and died in December 1777 aged 85 but there may have been younger speakers). She is buried in the graveyard of St Pol de Leon’s church. I want to visit her, It must have been lonely being (almost) the last speaker; I’m glad that “graghell”, the Cornish word for pile or heap didn’t disappear into the black hole of extinction. Cornish is spoken by some enthusiasts: much however, is conjecture and I have heard that passions run high on alternatives.
This time of year, I usually make a plan for the coming year, what I would like to learn, read and experience. My plans have been monotonously green. The interim goal of learning the classical Greek alphabet, getting through the first book on Old English, reviving my Latin, studying synonyms in Provencal and northern French, working for an hour on Bengali every day, among other worthy ambitions have been solemnly resurrected on 1 January each year and my powers of self-delusion are seriously on the wane. So maybe no plan this year but perhaps instead a diary to record my use of time.
I’m greatly enjoying living in Berlin, getting to grips with the wealth of associations in the culture. Being able to travel from Haparanda to Hendaye and not feel alien from the culture anywhere is pleasantly cosmopolitan. Europe feels like it did when I once travelled, mostly hitchhiking, from Lisbon to Stockholm, like a continent with distances resembling the US.
So far much time has been spent on the practicalities of life but this will soon change.
I have been rescuing my favouirite books from mixed literary wreckage and taking them home for a new life on a gentle shelf. I can’t give a rational explanation as to why I want to have my Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Manx, Cornish and Breton dictionaries close at hand but it pleases me and I’m not responsible for my basic design.
I’ve had so much to do with Germany and Berlin in particular over the years, wall gawp visits, pretending to do a PhD, children living here and other attachments that it hardly feels foreign but it is reassuring to have my solid collection of West Country books at hand so that I can give Wessex Kendall an occasional airing.