Exquisite

The window is open all night. Whatever the weather did then, I slept through it. Woke to coolness, to a low sky of watercolour greys.

Boy is up, eating cheese on toast. Boy looks at his watch. His morning routine is breakfast and cop drama. This morning some fanatical plot to reintroduce smallpox is not quite foiled yet. In principle, I do not like tv and breakfast. In practice, Boy relaxes happy before hitting the exam desk.

‘You can have a lift,’ I say, stirring soya milk into a bowl of oats. My breakfast is paler than the sky.

The big news today should be the big cheque handed to the letting agent. If we don’t pass the credit check, there is no refund. At this point, homeless and penniless thoughts haunt every level of our minds. One attends to practical acts to appease uneasy spirits, such as the dogs need walking, then we should write a menu plan.

As we are striding across the corner of the lowest field, out of habit eyeing up wood sources, a marvellous thing flies by, a dark winged thing, shaped as a damselfly, as skittering in flight as a butterfly. Most damselflies; Mr and me must confirm out loud, to each other; they hover, dart, they have a purposeful nip of movement. Curiosity pulls us from the path, has us wading in shallow brambles. We have not dreamt this thing, which perches now on a blackberry leaf.  Six thread-slender legs; an iridescent tube of body; the eyes are one-at-each-side wide; folded wings are gauzy-black; it all shines like finely glazed ceramic.

(This is what we saw; that changed the emphasis of our day; a long way from the native habitats, it seems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebony_Jewelwing)