Sequel



This morning, three stems from the pampas clump rest at the back of the car, all bunched up and fluffy: a car with a bunny tail.
Six wild strawberries, each, are foraged from the hedge.
This is all we pause for on the stride to Treniffle and back.

This is Trolley Bay Day 2: this time, time gets tighter…
We have pushed pennies from jars for a half-day’s van rental. The objective is for one more trolley bay to be in bits in our garden by early afternoon. The cloud cover fails to keep us dry. At noon, the workmen are dragging any unclaimed shelters to the skip, via an angle grinder. Also I must collect Baby from her Nana’s house. Which is why there is a small child in a car seat waving keys and a mobile phone at grandparents who are wet to their undergarments and grimly wrestling twine around unwillingly rolled Perspex sheets.
Flecks of blood from minor flesh wounds catch in raindrops.

Such loveliness to be at home in dry clothes not shivering. To drink warm tea and watch crazy Baby put a lead on bemusedly tolerant Cat; change her mind, drape the lead on herself; change her mind, coil it in the fruit bowl and stand on it: ta-da!
‘Baby,’ I say, ‘I’m a big fan of your work.’
Such loveliness: that confident laughter. 

"I think my Granma is a fruitcake."

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