Walking back through the November twilight, waved at my 95 year old friend at his window, it's a little cold these days for him to lean on the gate to chat. I pulled a sprig of bay leaves from his tree to add one to tonight's dinner; we have them in our garden but I wanted them there and then. I feel reluctant to take our late walk these dwindling afternoons, and yet when I do I'm always glad of it, the evening gentle, redolent, somewhat melancholy, full of low light and good smells for a dog, and we always walk further than I think we will.
I remembered a bit in 'Diana of the Crossways', a book I read a couple of chapters of for Librivox, and which I found a trial. I must get back to recording for Librivox, and walking dogs for the SPA, and other socially useful activities. Diana and Redworth return from the Crossways, she unwillingly having had her flight from disgrace forestalled, through a November evening, and she says that now she understands now why he always takes his holidays in November, which pleases him because she has not only remembered but also understood a detail of his life. A nice detail of a tedious book remembered vividly. That sometimes happens.
This has been going through my head lately.
(Worth hanging around on Youtube afterwards to hear other selected Paul Simon stuff: 'Slip sliding away', 'Loves me like a rock', 'Me and Julio' etc, I remembered Az singing that one to me, and other things.)
6 comments:
It's hard to believe that Paul Simon is 75 but his music is as good as ever. And R.I.P. today to Leon Russell, who died at 74, in his sleep.
fresh bay leaves! what a treat.
Ear worms! At present I cannot get away from the descending chords of "The has to be a treaty we can sign", from Leonard Cohen's last oeuvre.
Plus Kodachrome, Night Game, Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover, Homeward Bound, I am a Rock, Richard Corey, The Boxer and four dozen others. Didn't know you were aware. What a delightful late-life discovery.
Cheers chaps.
I've long loved Paul Simon's music, Bridge over Troubled Water was probably about the first album that I owned, and my brother and sisters had been playing and singing his stuff around the place before that. His solo music I was introduced to by friends at university later. As a youngster I found it sad and/or troubling, which some of it is. He's had a consistently good long run.
Ah I like this song a lot, and several others of his too, they always remind me of being on holday in Wales when I was younger, Mum always used to put the CD on in the car :)
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