Wait for Spring.

.....see!

At the top of the climb the forest falls away and creates a meadow that looks far into the west. There, everything was grey, a soft grey like the woman’s tears in the film that was still playing at the back of my mind. 

With the forest below in the fore, the grey mists looked like sea waiting to be crossed, a new world beyond. But for now I walked down towards the village. 

Still no one.

If it was not for my constant thinking the silence would have been all that I could hear.

 

At the back of the village there is a football pitch, with six goal areas. Two at each end as in most cases, two on each of the two sides. It must be funny to play a game like that.

The goal posts were rusty, the two boxes where the coaches could sit and watch had recently been painted.

Yellow.

Buttercup yellow.

But there are no buttercups today, just puddles on the penalty spot.

 

I follow the road twisting behind the church and cross the field that leads to the old post office, down the hill and arrive at the shop.

Mao is there.

Coleen too.

And Mario.

They are unloading Pascale’s van that is delivering, he enters carrying a tray of bright shiny clementine; a few wrapped in waxed paper. They are bright orange, brighter than the leaves of the forest.

I offer to help.

I’m too late.

So I buy bread.

And cheese.

Some chocolate for later.

And I drink a coffee.

Short.

Black.

 

I head back, and turn around the church. Doug and Louise are having a house built hear, next to the school. In between are the old wash basins, they haven’t been used since plumbing put water into each house.

The roof is made from asbestos slabs and the parents of the children at the school are worried that there is a health risk. The authorities have deemed that it is safer not to touch it. I stand under it for a moment and listen to the rain bouncing off and into the road that leads past the new house.

It is almost finished.

Louise hopes to move in before Christmas.

Doug is keeping an open mind.

The front garden is just mud.

Wet clinging mud. 

A dozen people working together trying to keep to schedule have turned it into a trampled war field.

I think Louise should wait for the spring, and for the sun to bake the ground hard.