The still estuary utters a misty whisper into the hollow form of the valley. Shorebound shadows are gelatinous hulls I walk into, gigantic jelly beans of gulping darkness needled at the edges by orange lamplight. The cranked dimmer switch of morning hovers at a steady glowing prussian blue that forces all landforms into one another and all but one star from the sky.

This is every morning. Every silent, unpeopled morning shortly after waking in the empty house, after a shower but before coffee, breakfast, brushing my teeth. I switch the outdoor light off, shut the door like a hatch in to the vacuum of space and turn the key thickly in the lock. The long motel curtains in the kitchen shudder with diffuse light. Objects are edged with lilac and radiate shadows.

Rituals are the first things I make when I spend protracted time alone. Here I choose to wake the house in a sequence of window blind adjustments and light switch operations. I prepare rooms for my presence whether I use them or not. I fill the kettle and organise my house bag which contains anything I might need throughout the day as I move and work my way through rooms. Half of the long table I have set aside as a drawing and painting station, covering its pristine top in protective newsprint. After coffee and breakfast I paint.

At ten I walk up the hill to St Sampson’s where I say prayers and wander unsystematically around the graveyard. Eventually I find myself sketching on a bench at the south east corner of the chancel. September’s morning sun is still warm enough to send me to sleep for a few moments. I move to another bench, this one ringing the trunk of an ancient oak at the top of the churchyard. The floor is carpeted with a heavy shag of acorns. I sit and watch nothing. A few more acorns fall and I record these morning sounds on my phone for a few minutes to play back at an indeterminate later date.

The river appears sporadically as I wonder back down the steep incline into the village. Houses, driveways, river views. A slight wind is up and the ruffled surface of the water sequin-flickers with light. I am back at the house for elevenses which is another cup of coffee and an apple. I look at the morning’s work, title things that will take a title. I charge my camera battery, select some lights to turn off.

I set up in the living room. From my house bag I pull Roy Strong’s book about country churches and I sit on the corner of the sofa nearest the fire, though it’s not late enough in the year to light it, and put my coffee on the triangular shaped table that fits perfectly on the slate hearth. There’s every chance I will nod off again. I think of my dad who once comfortable couldn’t keep at a book for more than five minutes without falling asleep. I look out the window at the quiet village laddering up the hillside. Bach on the Sonos, or Nick Cave whose book Faith Hope and Carnage I have also been devouring. Boiler steam from the house opposite cuts the sky in half. The world is awake but in this small village buried in a seam on the Fowey estuary in the magic-riven country of Cornwall the silence is forever as I move through the belly of the house into the kitchen and pull things from the fridge ready for lunch.