I saw the first Forest foal on the 7th of May this year and the first donkey foal last week on the 18th. The weather has changed from the misty, wet and miserable to the hot and sunny in a single bound, which is only displaying the still spring-fresh countryside in even greater beauty. The garden is still a little heavy for comfortable weeding, but I managed to cut the lawn again, removing about half the bulk I took off with the first cut.
I was suitably poetic as I drove by the longer route to work yesterday; watching out for young animals and the thickening canopy. On quiet roads I managed to catch a truck: Central Cleansing Services' tyres tore swirling dervishes from the dry gutter dust. On the greens were strutting jackdaws and mad rabbits with, in the road, lumbering cows and hungry calves. Ant nests marked the Ornamental Drive like needle cairns; hubs of radial foraging trails, coveted by green woodpeckers.
This morning, in my village, I saw a lady trapped by cows. Big golden Highland hybrid animals - possibly the most docile cow you could ever meet. She was on a footpath by the church, hemmed between rhododendron scrub against a fence and the roadside ditch. Two cows gently tongued the foliage on either side in her way and the rest of the herd rabble foraged quietly behind. She didn't look too distressed so I left her to her wait, or maybe to finally pluck up the courage to shoo the beasts away. I drove North West across the lawn, spotting sleepy foals seeking cool shadow already, beneath their mares, or in the cool dampness of the shallow drainage ditches. They lay, idle, trying out the taste of the green stuff in parody of their mothers' steady, concentrated munch. The waterways have already shrunk back between their banks, rippling rather than rushing under the bridges.
I drove North on Saturday, watching the countryside change, the air filled first with buzzard, then red kite, then kestrels on the motorway verges. I went to visit Dad, who had his heart bypass on Friday. When I arrived he wasn't really there; off with the fairies on the pain medication. I stayed for maybe three hours, speaking to the nurses, to his fellow ward guests and their visitors in turn. He seemed to take in his surroundings, observing me carefully if I drew close enough, to see who I might be. Six and a half hours driving for two dozen reluctant and rather utilitarian words. He would do the same for me and more in the reversed position. By Monday evening he was back on the cardiac ward, away from high dependency. On Tuesday it first occurred to him that he had had his operation and he was apparently a little angry that he had had visitors (me and my sister both) and that no-one had told him. He seems to have spent the day fiddling with his phone, a select few from his phonebook received a number of empty SMS. He phoned me to talk around 8:30pm, as I was digging a wider space in the vegetable bed, ready perhaps for planting. He'll be back to himself soon, although some of the swiss-cheesing from his heart-attack will haunt him a while. The surgeons who moved sections of his leg vessels into his heart also mended a couple of ribs which must have been broken by CPR.
In a spare moment, in the North, I dropped by the shop where I bought my mandolin to say thankyou. I haven't been practising enough, but I notice improvements when I do put the time in. I play it better than any other instrument I've ever tried playing, which is not to claim very much. I've been mostly finger-picking lately, rather than attempting chords.
The early fingers of the dawn creep very effectively round the curtain edges, disturbing my sleep to give me an extra hour of lying awake and thinking about life.
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