amazonian woes

Sailing Saturday, or I would have if it hadn't been so gusty. Rather than swim with my boat I hummed around, photographing, watching my children, enjoying the sunshine and the gentle company of the sailing club. The sun beat down, testing our defences, from a bottle of Riemann P20.

Sunday, early to the North again. Easterly on the M27, the morning sun reflected off the road patterns; lines of cats eyes back-lit and dark, shining trails of obsolescent contra-flows, mirages of distant foliage looking like flickering moss carpets that fade with proximity.

I shop severally and unsuccessfully for small portions of full-fat chocolate mouse for Mum. Service station Marks and Spencer offering me nothing I need, but plenty that would tempt me in other times. In the end, refreshed only by petrol I  arrive to see Mum almost without pausing. Plenty of chairs are traversing the pavement to the nearby public house; the garden is seeing some use. Inside, quiet, except for the usual suspects and some quiet singing - the television tuned to a level which seems uncertain whether it is to be heard or not, its presence is as congruous as the inmates'.

A rushed lunch meets ten minutes of the start of the Monaco F1. I see the only interesting part of the race on my Dad's television, water the plants, set the watching alarm again and drive, to find Dad relaxed, but not sleeping. Almost back to the state of gentle medical support that he achieved just before the bypass. We while a pleasant three hours and more, only slightly aided by the Sunday papers when rising sleep catches him unawares a minute.

I reprimand myself for all the rush, after all, time is all I have today. The travel and the visits will take the whole day, so why not relax a bit more. I could have settled into a chair and helped Mum with her mouse after lunch, I could have driven less frantically. At Northampton, with no help from the traffic reports, the motorway becomes a parking lot, who knows why? I leave a junction early and, rather than the marked alternate route, decide to miss Northampton with its information-free radio channel entirely. The A5 returns me soon enough to the A43.

A Chieveley pasty and watching a young crow, already knowing in the dance of chance as he hops round me, waiting for a broken crust. I am too hungry though. The car, parked in a row to itself, seems to wink at me like a 1960's Corgi toy with those plastic light channels from roof to headlights which first introduced us to the magic and possibilities of fibre-optics. In this instance due to the occlusion of the low, orange sun by high-sided vehicles on the nearby carriageway. Further up the sky the spiral condensation trails have been pulled by wind shear into spinal xrays; vertebrae contrasted by cloudy discs.

What's good is bad, from time to time. But although we can send stuff back to Amazon, some things we just get to live with. The promised thunder has not broken yet, pressures build behind my eyes.