Martina Hemming / Wolatz, who I’ve now known for almost 50 years, arrived to stay with me at East Lodge for a few days, on her way back from a school reunion in London.
Signature red lipstick, stylish dress, decisive honest words, she was a stimulating pleasure to be with. I introduced her, with some enjoyable mirth, as a school friend, and to notice how different our paths have gone. She fitted in with existing plans and coped well with the energetic dogs. (She told me that as a child in Africa, her father, fearful of them playing with wild rabid dogs, took her and her brothers to visit an African man who was dieing of rabies: frothing at the mouth, eyes popping out their bulging sockets, she never forgot this experience and understandably has a consequent nervousness of dogs).
That first evening we walked the land to find some chard for dinner, over which we caught up a few years, mostly Martina’s current energetic travel. She spends only 20% of the year now in Berlin, the rest in their Portuguese home and mostly on an ambitious adventure around the world, often South America, and with her husband Magnus. What have you found, I asked her, after visiting all these different lands and people? That all people, although conditionally different, are fundamentally the same, was her response. The following day she spent with Julia as I prepared the wood and met a friend, but she returned for an evening film at the Cut – Magnolia. (Guardian: an anthology of broken lives – each interleaving with the other in a lattice of ill omen and disquiet). Neither of us slept much that night (I disturbed by the news of the assassination of Charlie Kirk and fearful of the consequences). In the woods Martina joined in journey around Kaliwood with students of Forest School learning of woodland management. There is a photo of us all in the WW2 mens urinals, the extant archeology in the wood. We ended with a thoroughly enjoyable easy evening meal at the Star, Wenhaston, in which we explored any regrets or rather moments in which we may have taken different paths in our lives: we were born in the same year and about to reach 70, so patterns become more obvious, the body becomes less flexible. Julia met us at Halesworth station to say good bye as Martin left for Portugal where later that day she would be enjoying oysters. Indeed she sent me a photograph!
It was fitting I showed her around my life in the wood, as 10 years ago she had shown me her life, Berlin.
Kalikellett 