Postcard 2 from Marseillan: On the Beach with Barney

On the edge of the port of Marseillan is a small beach with a colourful, often deserted,

children’s playground and a café inhabited by the fit and young who come to train and enjoy cable skiing, where they are hauled on a wire out through the shallow, still water of the étang,* creating a satisfying spray before they turn right round and return in an equally dramatic watery fashion.

                Apart from the buoys that protect their path there a few motor boats casually tethered. And dangerously near the shallow shore a small yacht is anchored, its sails folded like the wings of a perching bird.

                A family group in shades of pink and red are picnicking close by on the beach, keeping an eye on their craft. Two lone women, one topless, lie separately, sunbathing and reading for half an hour before packing up and departing.

               A lone man – tall and tough – arrives on a gleaming motorbike in search of a swim. He wades out and, finding the water never reaches above his knees, resorts for a while to floating on his back. Then, towelling his hair, he strides back up the beach, flings himself back on his motorbike and roars off to find a more swimmable beach. 

                

 And here we are:  four people and Barney the Border terrier – for whom paddling up to one’s knees is the ideal thing. Normally placid and very philosophical, Barney comes to life in the water, leaping about, swimming and breasting the shallow waves.        S and D plodge beside him, kept busy throwing his seaweed scented stick. They throw it a hundred times. Barney is sad when the fun stops. He loves the stick and makes quite a business of  burying it safely before he is encouraged to come back up the beach towards us  Once he reaches us this tranquil dog who rarely barks or loses his rag barks loudly, saying to D. ‘Let’s go back, get my stick and play some more! Please.’

              Barney is sad when the fun stops. He loves the stick and makes quite a business of  burying it safely before he is encouraged to come back up the beach towards us  Once he reaches us this tranquil dog who rarely barks or loses his rag barks loudly, saying to D. ‘Let’s go back, get my stick and play some more! Please.’

* Etang de Thau. ‘Is it a lake; is it a sea, was it pioneered by Mother Nature or pioneering ancient  engineers? For centuries historians, scientists, wise men of the south have put forward theories as to the birth of the Etang de Thau. Most agree that the headlands of Sête and Agde are the remnants of two volcanic eruptions that spilt fiery foundations into the Golfe de Lion.’ So says Laurence Phillips in his beautifully written guide How to be very lazy in Marseillan

We Were Here 

Barney Retreat and a A Sense of Place.

I sometimes treat myself to a visit to Barnard Castle in South Durham.

I had just finished a big editing, revising and publishing task and was  sorely in need of a break which, as I am not a walker,  means a ride in my little car to drink a coffee and scribble/and/or enjoy conversation in some congenial place.

The old South Durham town of Barnard Castle is one of my destinations of choice. I go there regularly to drink coffee and scribble.

As a  family we are very fond of this old Weardale town  whose affectionate name in this locality is Barney. Through the years we have shopped there and generally hung out here, Many times we have visited the elegant  Bowes Museum  to look at  its paintings and exquisite artifacts.

 I once spotted  a tiny Roman silver spoon in a case there. It had been picked up in the nearby town of Spennymoor, dropped by some Roman when there was no town there at all - merely a pathway across a moor.

This silver spoon has  found a place in my forthcoming  novel Lines of Desire.

Our own Barney,

It was in the Museum - as part of the Durham Book Festival - that I had a fascinating  In Conversation session with  the writer Adele Parks.

My grandson, the Boy Who Likes  Chocolate went to school in Barney and my daughter Madam Licked Spoon and her husband Sean,  called their border terrier Barney, I'm still not sure whether she named this delightful family member after the town or after the school.

I have posted  on this blog before here and here,   about how important a sense of place is for a writer of  long and short fiction.

And so  my recent R & R visit to Barney made me wonder whether Barney might be an interesting place to locate a story,

Although swept through with a broad roadway dedicated to trade, this small town is full of ginnels and narrow places and has an old mill on the river which some years ago served as a damp and creaking book warehouse and is now being developed.

Charles Dickens famously slept here and dreamed up Nicholas Nickleby. And I myself have some material on the mysterious and much reviled second wife of Sir John Bowes (the one who built the Museum). Her name was Alphonsine and she is a fascinating character. i gathered a lot of material into a box. But it is still there a box - perhaps to re-visit in later times.

I have to admit I'm a bit more attracted to the history of  the old  Barney where carpets were woven and Durham Quilts were made and through whose streets , through the years, have swarmed hundreds of boys from  Barney School to greater and lesser dramatic effect -   later to emerge  into the sporting and public life of the nation.

There surely is a great story lurking in there somewhere.

 So, occasionally stir-crazy from writing and reading all day,  the delights of retreating to Barney and drinking coffee or watching a film in the newly refurbished Witham Hall can count as research.

Can't they?
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