Blue Cow-Slips?

Furthermore … when did you last take the road out of town, up the hill past the site of the old leprosy colony?

Knowing that it was there because the ancient road sign proclaiming so, still sits among the nettles and long grass lining the asphalt?

Come to that, whenever have you written the word asphalt?

I did (the former) - this morning – and I have (the latter) – just now.

It was early – mist was still rising from the river in the valley far below.

A man was standing on the verge - setting up tripod, camera and composing his shot of the early morning mist-rise.

It seems that the hillside oaks burst into foliage overnight, not one grey arboreal skeleton in view for the person next to me to point out.

Just an abundance of wild flowers to draw her remarks.

“Oooh.”

“Look!”

“Blue cow-slips!!”

I’m not sure that such a thing exists – but she saw them.

Good enough for me.

A Tree, a Saint and a Cake.

And when was the last time you lay down on a bench in a village square and looked up at the tree overhead?

I did, yesterday.

It was a chestnut, horse. 

Conker tree where I come from.

The leaves were spring-new – a birth-energy green against a virgin-blue sky.

Talking of which… there was a silver metal crucifix behind me.

If I turned my head a little I could make out Jesus – I think it was him.

He looked like him, but something seemed out of place, or in-place if deliberate.

At the very top – above the Lord’s head (bonce) – the sculptor had added a giant silver sea-gull.

“If I had the wings of a dove….” 

These were the words that football crowds would sing about their adversaries once upon a distant time.

“And I had the bum of a cow…”

Poor Jesus.

From above, many things come.

But from below they grow.

The late afternoon hours grew into early evening.

A dog came past.

I said hello.

I crossed the square to the shop, bought a stamp a bottle of water and a cake/mousse/thing.

“Are you going to eat that straight away?”

“Probably.”

“You should wait at least half an hour, it’s frozen.”

“I’ll try.”

I went back across the square and sat on the steps in the shade – the bench was in full sunshine.

It was hot.

I looked at the moussey-cakey-thingy.

Would you have waited?

You would have to be a saint.