This morning, early, early-ish. Coffee bubbles. Eggs are poached in domes.
Air is clear, cool to touch. Buttocks press on damp bench-plank. The view, half green, half blue.
Out of this protein and caffeine draw some wakefulness. Protean: this is how the word wanders up in my mind. A mix of protein and caffeine? Versatile, changeable.
Reluctant to be driving. Open window. Clock watch.
On time, parking is easy. Feel competent, even, yes, sociable.
In the big hall, one thousand white suits, one thousand voices, one thousand techniques: or thereabouts. It sounds like one thousand, it feels like one thousand. Every one happy, breaks sweat, body moving, brain connecting - this move goes here because - aha! How to smite your enemies!
All the lovely relaxing loss of tension - I would describe as ebbs in swirls - how it leaves you as you should be, happy, glowing.
And for the journey home, no satellite navigational advice. Follow a whim to Glastonbury instead, decide to visit the Abbey. Watch a lady park a big car with painstaking selfishness. How will the little car get out? Anyway, she flees the scene.
I stretch legs over green, under blue. Don’t want lunch, want ice cream. Imagine the ruins as they were once, complete - but they seem oppressive because the roof went on. Maybe if were raining I would like it better: wonder how the drops would sound, and what the roof was made of. I love the heaviness of the stones and shadows, and how the sky shows through the gaps.
I have ice cream, honey and ginger.
A monk walks by, leading a tour.
A medieval lady bids me good morrow: what’s in your mug, I say, is that coffee?
‘No, it’s tea.’ She shakes her head and laughs. ‘It hasn’t been discovered yet either so don’t tell anyone.’
Her anomaly is safe (until I write about it).
While the architecture is a thing of wonder, what leads my mind most is domestic detail: a worn wooden seat, what buttocks nested there, what conversations hummed above: did the pewter cutlery clatter? Did the kitchen ever smell of burnt bread? Cider, spilt on stone? How the spit-fat would have dripped...
Coffee and a parking limit draw me back to the car, where I sit with my flask watching the small car edge back and forth in a one thousand point turn of admirable patience.
More driving, more reluctance. Things to ponder. Food to anticipate.
Slow cooked chicken stew. Ate standing: so hungry!
The door is open, it’s been glorious all day.
Air is clear, cool to touch. Buttocks press on damp bench-plank. The view, half green, half blue.
Out of this protein and caffeine draw some wakefulness. Protean: this is how the word wanders up in my mind. A mix of protein and caffeine? Versatile, changeable.
Reluctant to be driving. Open window. Clock watch.
On time, parking is easy. Feel competent, even, yes, sociable.
In the big hall, one thousand white suits, one thousand voices, one thousand techniques: or thereabouts. It sounds like one thousand, it feels like one thousand. Every one happy, breaks sweat, body moving, brain connecting - this move goes here because - aha! How to smite your enemies!
All the lovely relaxing loss of tension - I would describe as ebbs in swirls - how it leaves you as you should be, happy, glowing.
And for the journey home, no satellite navigational advice. Follow a whim to Glastonbury instead, decide to visit the Abbey. Watch a lady park a big car with painstaking selfishness. How will the little car get out? Anyway, she flees the scene.
I stretch legs over green, under blue. Don’t want lunch, want ice cream. Imagine the ruins as they were once, complete - but they seem oppressive because the roof went on. Maybe if were raining I would like it better: wonder how the drops would sound, and what the roof was made of. I love the heaviness of the stones and shadows, and how the sky shows through the gaps.
I have ice cream, honey and ginger.
A monk walks by, leading a tour.
A medieval lady bids me good morrow: what’s in your mug, I say, is that coffee?
‘No, it’s tea.’ She shakes her head and laughs. ‘It hasn’t been discovered yet either so don’t tell anyone.’
Her anomaly is safe (until I write about it).
While the architecture is a thing of wonder, what leads my mind most is domestic detail: a worn wooden seat, what buttocks nested there, what conversations hummed above: did the pewter cutlery clatter? Did the kitchen ever smell of burnt bread? Cider, spilt on stone? How the spit-fat would have dripped...
Coffee and a parking limit draw me back to the car, where I sit with my flask watching the small car edge back and forth in a one thousand point turn of admirable patience.
More driving, more reluctance. Things to ponder. Food to anticipate.
Slow cooked chicken stew. Ate standing: so hungry!
The door is open, it’s been glorious all day.
Comments
Love that line!