Now is the best time of today. It’s calm out there after sniping winds earlier.
I had, by the standard of these times, a busy day. My walk was a quick march to the park via Gensing Rd, past The Nags Head, which strangely I’ve never frequented in all my 35 years here. I’m not a natural pub goer unless there’s a reason. Back in my performing days it was next stop after curtain down to let off a bit of steam with a pint of lager. Now I enjoy a glass of wine by my own fire and, in pre Lockdown days, maybe a trip across the road to the Kino Teatr to sink into a faded leather sofa with a large pinot grigio and a good friend for company.
All is mellow. There’s a lone seagull doing sentry duty on the roof to the right of my view; a building that always reminds me of an Edward Hopper painting with eyeless windows hiding uneventful lives. The gull hobbles to the edge of the parapet and looks down as though considering suicide. I swear he’s posing for me against a backdrop of brushed faded ink. When I look up again he’s gone.
Now it is just me by the fire, the last of the logs gurgling in the grate like a contented baby.
My walk was a shaken kaleidoscope of images. I still had time to take in the carefully arranged necklace of pebbles and stones on a windowsill and next door twin plants like stolid old men, plumped down on a garden bench.
Along the railings of the park clumps of tall luminous golden dandelions. The distinction between flowers and weeds is very tenuous. There are no boundaries to beauty when we look with our soul.