Cattle

I wish I was a cow - well maybe not a cow as they are girls - perhaps a big, gentle bull. Life would be so peaceful. I would not feel the cold. I would graze for hours with my friends. There would be no talking. After all - what would there be to talk about?

Grazing on the valleyside, I might notice the passing of days. Light into darkness. Darkness into light. And the passing of seasons. The coming of winter. The arrival of spring. There would be hot and there would be cold. Nothing to worry about.

If human beings entered my orbit, I would look up at them momentarily with my big brown eyes before returning to the very meaning of life - to graze upon the green grass. Those humans would scurry away somewhere as they always do. Somewhere over the rainbow perhaps.

I took these pictures yesterday, above The Porter Valley before returning home to get started  on a major Sunday dinner for six. Menu:-

Roasted pork loin

Homemade Yorkshire puddings (dreamlike)

Cauliflower cheese

Chopped red cabbage in apple sauce

Roasted potatoes

Mashed potatoes

Courgette cubes tossed in butter and thyme

Roasted carrots

Homemade gravy

Homemade apple sauce

For dessert Shirley had made a tarte-tatin which we ate with Cornish ice cream, custard and double cream. Each meal was calculated to contain eleven calories but of course there was wine too...from Italy, Australia and France.

And all the time the quiet cattle above The Porter Valley were munching grass as another night fell and October drew closer. From the trees came the hooting of an owl and from the city came the insistent bleating of an ambulance siren - faraway. Carried on the autumn breeze like music.

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A Stream Of Thoughts

 Only 48 hours or so after I publicly announced that I am happy being single 

I have been propositioned by two men. One, I haven’t heard from in a long time ,texted me hoping for a quick roll around in the sheets 

The other had more obscure needs and wanted a Sort of date. 

I’ve politely refused both.

Being asexual is en trend so they say.

So does this mean that I am finally grown up ? or is it as Rachel Philips perfectly explained that us singleton’s  living main benefit is

“.....being answerable only to myself  is doing what I like, when I  like, how I  like and at whatever time of the day I like.” 

Yesterday around 4 pm I found that I couldn’t sleep and so I got up, donned my fourth favourite Walking Dead T shirt And pants ! and took Winnie and Albert for a short walk into the churchyard.( I had gotten up a few hours earlier and had dropped off the younger girls at Trendy Carol’s )

Winnie is incredibly slow now and Albert seemed to chivvy her along with morale boosting slides under her chin with his entire body but it still took a good seven minutes to walk up the lane and through the lytchgate .

It was warm and sunny and from our bench we lazily  watched the lane as Mrs Trellis tottered down with Blue she left a carrier bag on the kitchen wall which later I found out contained a home made egg custard , three rustic napkins and somewhat strangely a set of pencils tied together with a piece of wool.

The day before my elder sister left bags containing jigsaws, a homemade cake, snowdrop bulbs and a book

That kitchen garden wall seems to possess great magical properties I thought.

A place for gifts!

It has been for years now.

As Mrs Trellis tottered down the lane I was listening to this piece of music. 

It’s Exsultate Justi from Empire of the Sun 

Somewhat oddly her steps fell in time with the beat of the music and it has sudden become her anthem. Music and Trellis as one as it were.

It seems to capture her nervous vitality quite wonderfully, especially as her Bobble hat “ bobbed “ Smartly as the sopranos trilled 

Days off ! four full days off 

What to do?....got tickets to see the indi coming of age movie Rocks. An “ in bubble” friend is coming for dinner and am meeting another friend for lunch 

I’m going to rebook a pottery class too

I will leave you with most beautiful of women

from Going Gently https://ift.tt/337ycS8

Bread

 Baking bread

On Sunday morning 

Love in

The oven

from R's rue https://ift.tt/3i7UHuD

Memory

The Island of Hydra in 1978. I am twenty five years old. This is the island where Leonard Cohen lived with his Marianne. White houses with terracotta rooftops tumble down to the harbour like jumbled Lego bricks. I have been sleeping on a pebbly beach along the shoreline. Swimming and reading books, consuming the printed words like food. Soaking up the sun.

Solitary but not lonesome, I wander into the town for my one indulgence – an evening meal in a taverna with two or three beers. Lamb kleftiko, Greek salad, stuffed tomato. The tables are arranged upon a spacious terrace overlooking the harbour’s twinkling lights. An almost full moon is reflected in the bay and there are stars a-plenty. 

A mixture of Greek and more familiar pop music oozes from hidden speakers. The volume is lifted as the Mediterranean blue and white tables are cleared. More drinks are consumed. Dancing happens in the middle of the terrace. There’s even that “Zorba the Greek” tune. Initial inhibitions start to melt.

Midnight passes. A smiling woman’s small hand grasps mine and I am there in the middle with the rest of them. We are dancing and laughing unselfconsciously – Greek and English, German and French, American and Dutch. United Nations. Yes we are dancing. Maybe twenty of us. 

A current popular song leaks from the speakers. It is “Because the Night” performed by Patti Smith and her group. We have formed a circle, arms around each other and we are whirling, having fun. All as one. Turning and laughing. Looking into each other’s eyes. All from different places. United by the song and we are singing the familiar chorus. Our voices echoing along the narrow white alleyways that lead down to the harbour. 

It is one of my signature memories of the Greek islands. That particular August. That particular place:-

Because the night belongs to lovers

Because the night belongs to lust

Because the night belongs to lovers

Because the night belongs to us

The barman puts it on again and the night really does belong to us. Yes - we whirl like dervishes. Briefly, the rest of the world does not exist.

Of these things I shall say no more. It was long ago and far from here.

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