Skip to main content

A Time Of Plenty

This alien proved difficult to decimate. But quite helpful at fixing Buzz. 


Little Grandson has more swagger than all of the Rolling Stones rolled together. Him and Buzz Lightyear strut the kitchen floor, decimating alien forces and demanding biscuits. He gets a laugh and a banana. Dog and Bouncy Beagle are in the garden, stealing each other’s sticks. ‘Grandad,’ Little Grandson enquires, ‘is Dog my cousin?’ Cousin being a word which to him, we glean, currently means ‘a living being who is in my family group but does not live in my house and has not got an obvious title such as Grandad.’
For lunch, there is leftover meat, quiche, flan, pie, profiteroles, but no cheesecake- Boy finished that at breakfast. After summer pudding and lemon meringue pie. The fridge groans like our bellies. We go to Great Grandma’s house to refuse further food. Little Grandson gets his biscuit and a bag of duck food. Down at the canal, past a hissing parade of swans, we find a good lobbing spot. Two white swans, one black swan, two ducks, three drakes, four pirate gulls squabble on the dark mirror of waterway. Little Grandson throws handfuls over the rail, watches the wings flap, the beaks snap, the water splash. From solemn contemplation, a great laugh breaks. We run across the bridge. 

A very patient Dog is taken into space custody.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I used to let seagulls take bread out of my hand as they flew by down at the beach when I lived in Florida. They never bit me though.
Suze said…
Are we cousins?
unikorna said…
You seem like the merriest family in the world...and with the best food. Wow all those foods kinda made me drool a bit, I miss a good meal. You should stop by Eastern Europe sometimes Lily. I am a great host :).
Lisa Southard said…
Mr Bama, I am pleased to learn that Florida seagulls have manners. I love the boisterous birds but they are ill behaved in our coastal towns.
Suze: my American cousin, my soup sister!
Unikorna, I should love to do a food tour of the world- one of the low points of a low income is not having travel funds. I've noted the cake pics on your blog- your house is on the tour route, most definitely!

Popular posts from this blog

Contact Pants Conundrum

There is weather today, I do note it: take a few moments to reckon the size of a cloud (big) and the frequency of rain (sporadic.) Centre of my interest though is a stack of magazines. Not the fashion kind. This is martial arts research. I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for, but intuition calls loud. A range of old adverts skew some amusement. Contact pants, for example. Pants are not trousers where I come from. They are underwear. Professional contact pants: improved smirk value. But why would a person be likely to purchase a grappling hook and a lock pick set? For specialists and hobbyists only, the blurb assures. Guidance on the pheromone spray that attracts women against their better judgement? I doubt it works any more proficiently than the mysterious potion that defines your muscles while you sleep. But, then: I wonder is some sprayed on this paper? What was my intuition thinking, making this ghastly shout… Tea break time. There's a lot of words...

Back From The Future Blog Party

Another joint blog adventure- if you want to see who else said what the list of participants is here . The premise is this: 'You're up before dawn on a Saturday when the doorbell rings. You haven't brewed your coffee so you wonder if you imagined the sound. Plonking the half-filled carafe in the sink, you go to the front door and cautiously swing it open. No one there. As you cast your eyes to the ground, you see a parcel addressed to you ... from you. You scoop it up and haul it inside, sensing something legitimate despite the extreme oddness of the situation. Carefully, you pry it open. Inside is a shoebox -- sent from ten years in the future -- and it's filled with items you have sent yourself. What's in it?' Here's how I imagined it: Before dawn? Shadows outside, first forming. Sleep has gone, I don't know where. Coffee I can find. All the way from Machu Pichu, this fair-traded pack. Scissors are in the drawer, which ...

A Happy Kind Of Idiot

I am watching hazel leaves shimmy in a breeze, they are keeping time with the buzz of nettle stings that run from my fingertips to my elbows. It feels like I'm wearing gloves made of needles; why didn't I just wear gloves to clear the nettles from the raspberry hedge? But I like to know the plants, how they grow, how they smell, how they stain and sting, what bugs shelter in their leaves, what grubs and gastropods nestle at the roots. How the roots sneak under weedblocks, moon-pale, and over open ground where they are purplish, bullish.  I like the work to affect, I like interactive life.  It has a little pain and a lot of interest.  Not all the nettles are gone, of course, some must be left to house caterpillars, and they are a healthy vegetable for people too. Today’s crop is for compost though, to feed the soil, the miracle stuff from which this abundance grows. How could I not wish to be close to that?  At home I have a shower, scrub my sore hands- and still I sm...