~ I went out to give J a lesson on forwarding and copying e-mails and text, so she can keep their numbers of distant friends informed about D's health, which isn't good now. We had tea after, and Tom walked in unexpectedly, having been out and about on other business and thought he'd look in and see D. The latter was at his radiotherapy session, and we left together, drove off separately but met up and got out at the top of the hill to give Molly a run. She decided she'd swap cars for the rest of the journey, and we raced each other home (not at speed, just to see whose route is quicker), Tom taking his preferred wider, longer road past the house with the yellow pvc windows and up the Plemy road, and I the winding water tower route, past the donkeys and the black sheep and the house with the peeling gate and pink hydrangeas that I suspect our neighbour C may be renting, taking refuge from being divided into one less part than Gaul between his turbulent and rotund wife and his tungsten sparrow mother. Tom was home before me but only just.
We never usually get to meet in an impromptu way outside the house like this, and of course it requires a wasteful duplication of car use. Nice though.
~ A basket of greengages on the table, rapidly diminishing. They are meltingly sweet, their insides taste gold and their skins green, even with your eyes shut.
Photo:
Cadeaux et souvenirs, loto et tabac. Old couple seated in a restaurant window, Josselin.
8 comments:
Your luscious description of greengage plums makes me want to track some down . . . asap!
I've been reading bits and pieces from the last couple of weeks of your life. Sorry to be such a stranger. I seem to have lost the hang of blogging and can only read books these days. I don't know why.
Perhaps it is just summer lethargy and the change of season will sort it? That, or a bracing swim in Brittany waters.
Sending fond thoughts your way, dear Lucy. x
Sounds like fun..racing to see which route is nearer; sometimes we just need these small things to spark some joy.
Family story, cousin Paul put a whole green gage plum into his mouth, and it stuck, with his jaw wide and no way to close. How they managed to extricate him, or rather the plum, is not related.
I have never seen this kind of plum, so part of the visual is always missing for me.
The man in the photo reminds me of Hitchcock.
They are meltingly sweet, their insides taste gold and their skins green, even with your eyes shut.
Delicious. I love the "even with your eyes shut" observation - tasting colors.
Yes. That's how greengages taste. Even with my eyes shut.
I was going to suggest that the male silhouette could be Hitchcock's ghost and I realise HKatz saw him too... Striking indeed. Nice picture.
Can you absolutely and honestly swear, hand on heart, by the ashes of your fathers and the temples of your gods, quite willing to go straight to perdition if found out, that you didn't tread just a little, eensie weensie bit more on what the Americans call the loud pedal to make sure you arrived...
Actually, I'm distracted. Having had to check out old Thomas Babington let me give you the best three lines:
So fierce a thrust he sped,
The good sword stood a hand-breadth out
Behind the Tuscan’s head.
Not your kind of stuff. But it made my dad roar with laughter and he, in his declining years, went on to attempt verse of his own.
Thanks all.
Bee, reading books sounds a more than acceptable alternative to blogging, which isn't to say you aren't missed. I hate to have to say the bracing swim seems to have been followed by cold, cough and earache, so perhaps it wasn't quite such a great idea...
Z - that must have been quite a large greengage...
BB - OK, well maybe a bit, but really me in my 1100 engined Saxo on winding roads am no possible match for Tom in the Xsara on a straight one. The fact I was in only just behind him indicates my route really is shorter in distance, plus I like it better because I can stop and look at the donkeys if I want to.
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