of books, the business of living and the moon glowing bright as a hole in the sky. All the leaves are going, the window rectangles from the estate poke through. The squirrels are getting tubby and I tramp Shabbington Wood with the mushroom hunter, pause to see the last red roar of the winter sun. Come the cold and the colour-fade and the consolation of a sip of Calvados.
going out. The tide stays where it is, lumped mid-slop in Newton’s magic trick, held by the moon. It’s you rolling away from the tide, carried away on the turning Earth. You’re not left behind, you’re moved on. We’re all freeloaders and freeriders on the sphere, with just an instant to admire the rose in the community apple orchard.
to work. It tempts the eye and a longing to be out there. I sit and look at the sunflowers and think maybe I should have a dog, a dog that begs walks and then pays for the beer in the valley-crease boozer, leads me tramping away through the flower fields. All those millions of upturned, sun-blanched sunflowers to border the curling roads out at Trafalgar. Eyes staring fifty miles instead of the five inches to this screen. But there’s no dog and no tramping, no fifty miles, just me and the M&S sunflowers on my work table and Wes Montgomery playing D-Natural Blues. But that aint bad and it’s not too late for another cup of the tropic nectar. Five paces away.
clouds in my coffee give the game away. I work at the table, trying to imagine a plan before the winter snap rolls in. But I’m taking so much fire from the ground, so many flashes and hurts, I can’t see the LZ for squint and smoke.
so cool it soothes. But you get nothing back from the desert, only a hot, maddening wind and the taste of salt on your lips.
with the ghost of Nelson and a rushing palette of blues. Africa stands off in the cloud line.
the motivation doesn’t. Wish I was in Paris, sipping a Ricard. Or down at Praa sands. Chewing a burger in Nepenthe, Big Sur. Wish I was five miles up with the Brize Norton jet coming back from the Middle East. It comes in every afternoon and I’d like to see Oxford town from up there. Idle, heatwave dreams. And in my bag I’ve got Lorca and his essay on duende, and Cape Trafalgar in coming weeks, and a book to write by Christmas. But it’s the reading about duende I want most. All is well.
the dry grass cupping a hand, all care gone as the speedo needle twitches. It’s been a hard few weeks. My escapes are only taxi calls, imaginary rides. I put King Bee on and roll into Woodstock. The one I care about by my side.
than granita, but Lucifer taught me how to take my coffee when it hits 30 and above, ersatz as it may be. Wise is the traveller, but always dreaming of the valley not known.
for me, I’m up with the birds prepping the parlour for a second coat of Diamond White. That Age of Leisure ship never came in, everywhere I look I’m wrestling with the daily challenges. I’m at peace with it.
