Are you listening to yourself?

It's so good to wake up on a bright sunny morning. I went down to the harbour at nine thirty on my own with my Sony Alpha 68 and wide angled lens, interested in taking some photos with the tide reaching its highest point. In the few days we've been here there's been more silt visible than water within the harbour walls. It's a major problem for all the small leisure craft berthed here now, since the demise of industrial traffic in the last century, and there are treacherous sand banks off shore outside the harbour walls adding to the problem of access. Maintaining routine dredging is more costly than ever, and the Swiss owners of the port are not pulling their weight to ensure its modest viability. It was good to see all the craft and a pontoon boardwalk floating temporarily, though the water was half a metre deep in most places, instead of more than three.

When I returned, Clare was sitting out in the sun on the patio. We walked back down to the harbour and sat on the south beach beside it for a while then went to the Phoenix Italian Restaurant just down the street for an authentic Italian lunch. I don't much enjoy having to navigate multiple choice menus, serving the Italian equivalent of tapas, so I chose one big dish of spaghetti bolognese, which was delicious and plenty for me. Clare had some cooked greens grown around Naples, prawns in a parsley sauce, and aubergines pickled and served with a tomato sugo. All very tasty, as was the home made sourdough white bread with macadamia nut oil and thick balsamic vinegar. The bread was just like the pan campesino I discovered on the shelves of Mercadona's panaderia in Spain. The couple running the restaurant were a Swansea boy and enthusiastic Italiana I think from Milano. Certainly the best place we've eaten out in since we've been here.

After a siesta we walked the mile to Eglwys Santes Fair, the Victorian Parish Church. It was designed by a local industrialist George Elkington and its construction financed by his wife and daughters, probably after his death in 1865. A bilingual plaque on a west front buttress reads 'Built by his wife and children', leaving ample room for the imagination to run riot!

In the evening we watched a filmed interview by John Wilson on the BBC Radio Four programme 'This Cultural Life' with Whoopee Goldberg, speaking about her creative life as a storyteller, starting when she was young on theatre stages doing in-character monologues, through to her roles in an assortment of movies, over a hundred of them. An amazing conversation in which she shone with pleasure throughout. Really inspiring. 

She spoke about under the direction of Mike Nichols who introduced her to New York stages, with her solo show 'Spooks'. Giving her feedback on her performance in one monologue, he said it was too long, and that she's made her key point seven minutes before the end. Then he asked "Are you listening to yourself, when you perform?" It was a comment which really struck home with the preacher in me. How often do I find it difficult to conclude a sermon in a satisfactory why? If I succeed, it's because I'm not improvising but following a written and edited text. It can take far longer to produce than it takes to deliver. Writing and re-writing, I'm listening to myself before I speak, rehearsing my words. I've always felt safe and confident doing this. For better or for worse. t's typically introvert behaviour.

Spielberg's movie 'The Colour Purple' in which Whoopi starred followed on from the interview, but it went on too late for us to watch. We have to be packed and out of here by ten in the morning, so it's bed early tonight. Thankfully, we don't have to clean up after ourselves. That's all taken care of.