Boot swinging

Across the lawn, North of the path I walk on automatic, I heard the bubbling cry of curlew from the boggy bottom I skirted. Water has run so long on this grass this winter that the shallow sheets of runoff are choked with mats of algae. Off the made-up paths, the tracks that ponies make are puddled and muddied. Boot weather.

Squelching and splashing through the gorse stands, clothing grabbed by thorn and prickle, things only get marginally worse when more rain falls. Fortunately it is a day of very short showers. Where this landscape opens to heather heath, with fewer bushes, stonechats flit and chatter; over the marshy lawns skylarks make cryptic love songs.

Taking a dryer, unfamiliar route, I find a spot where I can see the church 6 miles to the North as well as the spine of the Island, 4 miles South. The cranes of the city to the East are hidden by smooth hilltops and wooded enclosures. Thrushes and goldfinches fly and call between the trees dotted here.

Almost without exception, those I meet are exercising dogs. I'm passed by a couple of runners, half a dozen cycles. I see two picnics; it is lunchtime after all, albeit damp and only just in double figures Centigrade.

UI woes

The DeWalt flashes while charging and indicates fully charged by a steady LED. The Oral B does the opposite.

When the toothbrush caught my eye in the bathroom this morning, I wondered how it had received an email.

RIP JIT

Manufacturing;

‘Just In Time’ is out-of-stock:

Coronavirus.

Ciara

Rain drops swarm under the force of Ciara, wetting windows North and South, blowing under the porch. I opened the door to taste them and the trees sounded like the sea.

Youngest made porridge for all. He called it well.

Tears in space

Dark Side of the Sun.
On one eight eight, I suffer,
Terry Pratchett loss.

GPS knows nothing, nor calendars neither.

I stand, cold,
Chin over the kitchen sink.
Watching diagonal rain sprinkle the winter garden.
And recreate a Provencal August day,
In an orchard's shadow.
With a bite,
Of ripe,
Pear.

Little to be said

In a quiet house, yesterday morning, I was in a reflective mood, watching out of the dining-room bay, towards a sunny sky. The brightness on the, less than clean, windows made me invisible to a goldfinch that alighted on the slenderest of stalks. The bobbing bird, on its twitchy stem, jerked its head about, watching for threats while it scanned for food; each movement mirrored in the stem.

The finch was in its gold and red finery, I was on the cusp of changing into my dullest. The suit I'd wanted in charcoal that only came in dark navy; my saddest shoes.

The bird flicked wings to a dry iris head, finding it empty, onward to verbena. I took the stairs to find the suit hung in covers. I slipped it out and two black snakes of cloth slithered, dropping supine on bed and floor. I chose the finest thread count for my neck.

My only formal shoes have seen as many funeral services as I. They cling to vestiges of mud from many a diocese; I dust each with a sock.