Wales snapshots - all 10 in the right order

1   Heron - Last year, I saw you there, over where the river smooths into blackest shadow. Pose frozen like pale grey stone, your bead eye shone keen with one intent. I flinched as you flung out a ruthless javelin beak. White flash. Black water. Silver fish. This year, I'm waiting for you.

2   Beams - Blackened pine beams angle above the doorway, framing this stone house. A plain door with sporadic wandering eyes watches my sleep. Black iron latches keep me safe. Above my bed, I track the places where branches once span out of this tree trunk, follow the flight of a dark bird.

3   Recipe for a perfect day - Walk along a singing river. Follow it's thunder through a gorge of shimmering pines. Climb a heather lined track. Lie on warm rocks. Eat lunch gazing at a vast panorama. Meander down a crooked slate path towards a still blue lake. Stroll the river bank home. Smile beside a fire.

4   Bilberries - In the hypnotic buzzing breath of crickets, I sit tuffetted beside a gurgling stream. Wonderful mountains lie all around me. I want to stay til dawn. Soon, I am leaving this inspiring place. My legs take home the memory of each step I've climbed. My hands are stained purple from bilberries.

5   Candles at breakfast - The wind changed. It ran through the house swirling dust from last night's cinders. Sheets of rain cut in from the west. The dark river spat against rocks. Blankets of cloud sucked colour from the hills. Candles flickered at breakfast. I wrote at the open back door wrapped in rugs.

6   Blame it on the bog - High in a remote valley, the sky sank to earth. Sudden rain beat down. We headed for home, anxious. Tiny streams ran joyous, swelling and uniting, turning mossy stones into hazards. Exhausted, I blamed my tears on the bog. Then I realized, this mountain wants to hold a tarn here.

7   The view I painted last year - In my living room. Unfinished. Painted last year on a clear morning before footsteps creaked through the house. I put it aside when a storm loomed. Today, I look out towards you, hidden again in low rain clouds. The map leaves you unnamed. I leave you unpainted for another year.

8   Spring water - Crystal clear. Lively hint of cool metal at the back of your throat. Best drunk long, neat and icy, close to it's mountain source. Tings against your tongue. Widens the eyes. Quenches the driest of thirsts with a gasp. Traces of bilberry, peat and quartz birdsong. Softens a hardened heart.

9   The map I haven't put away - A temporary rug across my floor. Abstract shapes. Flowing neat lines. The first day I stretched to hold you I wondered how it would be on a mountain with wind and weather. The path I was taking meant I had to turn you over, flapping, in a headwind and drizzle.

10  Afon Glaslyn - I drag my finger across the creased map searching for your source. Somewhere hidden, cupped in a high hand of mountains, you are springing from rocks, beginning your wild run. Waterfall, lake, river, gorge, estuary. In an echoing cavern deep in my head, I can hear your lulling white noise.

Ideas are still bubbling away regarding these pieces. Not sure where they are heading yet, however, I wanted to view them all as a sequence and in the right order. 

Please don't look in

It's gone now. The sign. When I walked past the house last night in a cool breeze that pulled crinkled brown leaves from the trees, I slowed down again. I tried not to look beyond the dry skeletons of geraniums that needed dead heading. But I remembered the neat and sparsely furnished living room that looks out into the shadows of the street. A room that looks un-lived in.

The first time I saw the notice, someone was standing behind it, blocking my view. There was a woman there with beautiful red curls, curls like those I always wished for as I ate my breakfast crusts. I had seen people slowing down and pausing beside her tiny garden as they walked home from the station and I paused too, and read the words but carried on walking when our eyes met. 

I wondered what her real intention was, what was the impulse behind her sitting down to type out those words - "Please don't look in", and placing the sign in the middle of her bay window. And I wondered about what she made of the reaction those words prompted, because despite what her words said, they invited us all to be pulled into her fish bowl world and to be curious about it.

Without the sign, her home is just another one in the sunny terrace again. Unmemorable, it's hard to guess which of several nondescript houses it could be, unless you look in of course!

Melting pot 5

• On my coffee table - Connemara - Tim Robinson
• On my music stand - Duos for 2 violins - Bela Bartok
• On my iPod - Knee deep in the North Sea - Portico Quartet
• From the allotment - courgettes, courgettes, courgettes, rhubarb, purple french beans, radishes, sweet peas, raspberries, the first runner bean and courgettes

Wales. 10 - Afon Glaslyn

I drag my finger across the creased map searching for your source. Somewhere hidden, cupped in a high hand of mountains, you are springing from rocks, beginning your wild run. Waterfall, lake, river, gorge, estuary. In an echoing cavern deep in my head, I can hear your lulling white noise.

Wales. 9 - The map I haven't put away

A temporary rug across my floor. Abstract shapes. Flowing neat lines. The first day I stretched to hold you I wondered how it would be on a mountain with wind and weather. The path I was taking meant I had to turn you over, flapping, in a headwind and drizzle.

Wales. 8 - Spring water

Crystal clear. Lively hint of cool metal at the back of your throat. Best drunk long, neat and icy, close to it's mountain source. Tings against your tongue. Widens the eyes. Quenches the driest of thirsts with a gasp. Traces of bilberry, peat and quartz birdsong. Softens a hardened heart.

Wales. 7 - The view I painted last year

In my living room. Unfinished. Painted last year on a clear morning before footsteps creaked through the house. I put it aside when a storm loomed. Today, I look out towards you, hidden again in low rain clouds. The map leaves you unnamed. I leave you unpainted for another year.

Wales. 6 - Blame it on the bog

High in a remote valley, the sky sank to earth. Sudden rain beat down. We headed for home, anxious. Tiny streams ran joyous, swelling and uniting, turning mossy stones into hazards. Exhausted, I blamed my tears on the bog. Then I realized, this mountain wants to hold a tarn here.

Wales. 5 - Candles at breakfast

The wind changed. It ran through the house swirling dust from last night's cinders. Sheets of rain cut in from the west. The dark river spat against rocks. Blankets of cloud sucked colour from the hills. Candles flickered at breakfast. I wrote at the open back door wrapped in rugs.

Wales. 4 - Bilberries

In the hypnotic buzzing breath of crickets, I sit tuffetted beside a gurgling stream. Wonderful mountains lie all around me. I want to stay til dawn. Soon, I'm leaving this inspiring place. My legs take home the memory of each step I've climbed. My hands are stained purple from bilberries.

In love with a river

I knew as soon as I woke today. Felt the dull weight of loss across my face. 

I make myself get out of bed, throw on yesterday's creased clothes, sit beside the open window watching commuters run down the hill for the 7.16. I drink two cups of tea, turn away from the colourful fruits uneaten in my bowl and drag my reluctant pen across the pages of my journal like a lost soul relying on the comfort of a confessional. 

When I stop writing, when my pen pauses, when the erratic scratching and catching of nib on paper stops as I turn a page, I realize that my ears are straining to hear a voice in the silence. I am listening out for a relentless song whose lilt changes according to the moods of the sky in the next valley. 

I want to be lost in the riotous roar of your voices as you tumble down the gorge. I want to listen to the subtle changes I hear in your sound when I move my head closer to the blue grey rock face.

I miss the cooling fresh air you push into the room, the gasp I take when I unlock the back door and you flood into the house and fill it with your presence, the clear air you bring down from the mountain tops.

The back of my throat is gasping for an iced shot of you. I need a shock of you splashed onto my tearful eyes. My voice lusts after your clarity. My bones crave your minerals. I want to cool my tired feet in your shallows, swim with teeth chattering along your shadowy banks. I want you to shine my hair again with a silky mirror touch that I've known since childhood.

I miss seeing you from every room in the house, from my first waking moment until I go to sleep by the window under the eaves. I miss stealing a glimpse of you when I sleepily raise the curtain and watch you passing by in the thin moonlight. From the garden, the street, from the bridge in the village and looking down from the purple hills, the lifeline of you is constantly cutting a white path down from the highest mountains.

Afon Glaslyn, I am missing your company, simply being there beside you. I am waiting for the weather to change in my heart.

Wales. 3 - Recipe for a perfect day

Walk along a singing river. 

Follow its thunder through a gorge of shimmering pines. 

Climb a heather lined track. 

Lie on warm rocks. 

Eat lunch gazing at a vast panorama. 

Meander down a crooked slate path towards a still blue lake. 

Stroll the river bank home. 

Smile beside a fire.

Wales. 2 - Beams

Blackened pine beams angle above the doorway, framing this stone house. A plain door with sporadic wandering eyes watches my sleep. Black iron latches keep me safe. Above my bed, I track the places where branches once span out of this tree trunk, follow the flight of a dark bird.

Wales. 1 - Heron

Last year, I saw you there, over where the river smooths into blackest shadow. Pose frozen like pale grey stone, your bead eye shone keen with one intent. I flinched as you flung out a ruthless javelin beak. White flash. Black water. Silver fish.

This year, I'm waiting for you.

Home from Wales, having enjoyed being in spectacular landscapes again, wondering when I can next get away for a longer break. Those of you in the UK will have seen the weather forecasts last week, so no prizes for guessing what one of the themes for this set of posts will be! While away, I wrote every day except the ones spent travelling, so will be using those writings to build some new posts soon.

Holiday melting pot

• Mountains
• Wide open spaces
• A river to sit beside
• A log fire
• Notebooks, sketchbooks and paints
• Good company
• Favourite wine

Hitting the road

Early in the morning, I will be on the road to Wales for a break, returning to a place that is a perfect spot for me. The little house in Snowdonia where I stay backs onto a river and you can sit and look at the mountains from the outside dining table, or from a rock in the middle of the river if you fancy a refreshing paddle first. Those rocks are just great to sit on with a nice glass of wine after a day's walking in the mountains.

So, I will be taking a break from blogging for a while given I don't have much choice about it in this little world apart. No phone, no mobile signal and no internet. There's no internet cafe in the village either. I had thought about scheduling some posts to keep up my daily pieces for while I'm away, but it all feels contrived. And also, having flopped after finishing work today, it is just too daunting a job. This is the start of my holiday after all and not time to take on more than I would wish. It has been tough enough to get everything packed and to sort out the allotment ready for it's week with the minders.

Today, as I tied up lots of loose ends at work and collected my writing and painting gear together, I was thinking about how all of my work has very blurred boundaries with what I regard as play. Sometimes, I don't think I know the difference between the two. They are so intertwined that I cannot see the separate strands. However, I never take an instrument on holiday with me. Years of playing music every day make holidays away from it very special.

What I will be doing on this holiday is slowing down and enjoying exploring that area again, being outdoors in the mountains as much as I can, and putting pen or paint to page or canvas when I feel the need. I don't know if I will write daily or not. It will be good to have a space to see how things lie and to let things have a little life of their own. I'm sure I'll come back with lots of new images to fuel my next round of blogging. It's been a great experience so far and I will be looking forward to writing here once I am home again.

The wrong pictures

Lying diagonally across the bed, feet hanging off one side near the wide open balcony doors. It's 4.10 am, humid and still. On the roof opposite, a seagull day has long begun and their big footed grey chick is croaking and whistling as it strides along the crest of the roof. I listen to the ins and outs of your gentle breath and wish I was still in a dreaming world. My body has left a damp print on the sheets next to you and I am wide awake.

I turn my head upside down over the bed edge to let some air touch my throat, and I catch sight of Mount Cook inverted and glinting in the pale dawn light. July on the calendar. A white incisor tooth biting into an antipodean sky. A different world. 

In my childhood kitchen, there was always a calendar sent from New Zealand. Heat in December and snow covered peaks in July. My friend used to mutter every time she saw it, wondering why they always sent one with the wrong pictures. I told her that they lived upside down there as well, and that their midday was our midnight, but she wasn't at all impressed. Her six year old black and white logic had no time for such foolish concepts.

This calendar came home with me on the lonely journey back on the train from my father's funeral and the clear stark finality of sorting out his home and possessions. There wasn't much to bring away or much that I wanted. Photos, a few letters, an old lighter with lovely swirling engraving. And this year's calendar sent to him last Christmas by his far away brother. 

Having it on my wall above my little desk has reminded me of how huge the world is, of how I still haven't made it into the Southern Hemisphere. It also seems to be telling me something about our own exploring, both out in the world and within.

The other end of the year

We went head to head once more. It was inevitable. When we said our goodbye, when I closed the door, I knew it was the last time I would see you. I looked into the blank space you left behind with quiet curiosity and felt like I could breathe again. I wrapped up to go and catch the last hour of February daylight. 

Alone on the beach, I walked on low tide sand that shone pale metallic blue on it's higher edges. A strange light was left after a huge storm that was racing out to sea like an arm cast out ahead and pointing. Veils of rain and hail were dragged along behind it in drapes that seemed to carve huge distances into the sky. The sun glowed like a cooling bronze disc behind layers of shrouding cloud. The warmth of sunset pink lay like embers on a bank of low cloud in the west - the kind that looks like a distant land you could walk into if you were there.

The sea rolled to shore in idyllic surfer dude waves, like from the other end of the year. Strong enough to stand on and long-lived enough to carry you riding to the shallows, each wave seemed to be sculpted to perfection, held almost at bay by the ruthless biting wind coming off the land. Sheltered down there in the wildest place in town, the buildings protected me from it's teeth. 

I watched black grit clouding with sand as the waves sucked the last foaming tide away and left those strange river delta patterns that I so love. I was in a beautiful solitude. It felt like a restoration. It felt like a gift.  

I heard it draw closer. The hail was sweeping in on another tide. I ran for scanty cover by the beached wreck of the West Pier. I never saw it look so menacing a cage against the frowning sky. I stood next to the depths of it's echoing shell, the brutal arms of it's spiked beams. Mists of hail swirled and speckled down, and the world lost it's colour. Then came the sudden loss of sound as percussion became silence and the air suddenly softened with huge snowflakes and their hypnotic flight against the background hiss of the tide. Dark monotone was turning into brilliant white.  

I zipped up my wet pockets and my feet were running to the next beach with a new found energy, like my legs came directly out of the pot of anger in my fuelled belly. The next stretch of sand was the widest low tide beach I've seen for months and as I ran into that temporary place, I wondered what my running limbs would look like to someone looking down at this view from up high in one of the hotel windows?  Would I be a stick figure? A small spiky calligraphy? A moving dot? I felt wonderfully small. I felt wonderfully alive and wonderfully free.

My face was glowing in the bitter wind and snow, and as I turned for home in the darkening remnants of light, I caught a glimpse of a triangle of  blue sky racing behind a chimney stack. It was breaking free from the grasp of the dark storm. The light broke through the downpour for a moment and I wanted to be indoors, sitting beside a cinematic window with an epic view of this sky drama. I wanted to see this evening from every window of the house.

Brighton beach is covered in pebbles - ouch on bare feet! At really low tides there are stretches of sand to enjoy but they are far rarer than I would like. Let's face it, we can't always make it to the beach at 2.30 am just to enjoy walking barefoot! So this low tide that I wrote about was even more special coming on so dramatic a day.

Herb bed

Lulled by lemon balm, dry waving arms of sage lure me closer. Sharp black dots pepper out from translucent paper chive heads as I brush by.  Fennel shivers as I let myself fall. A shiny bay leaf cracks apart. Rosemary pricks my heel, and I can't resist closing my eyes.

Melting pot 4

• On my coffee table - 253 - Geoff Ryman
  
• On my music stand - Swedish Fiddle Music - Ben Paley
• On my iPod - Les ondes silencieuses - Colleen
• From the allotment - rhubarb, sugar snaps, courgettes, sweet peas, oak leaf salad, chard, shallots, raspberries, radishes

Looking at birch bark

Scrolls, tightly spun. I tease you out. I want to read the stories in your secret patterns.

Code. Nature's ticker tape messages. The history written inside your skin. Shed. Discarded to the ground. Replaced with a new layer of life. I could tell your age, the fungi that has lived within you, the storms you have withstood - if only I knew what to look for.

Strange blobs and dashes. Almost a pattern, but not quite. You ask me -"What do you see there?", claiming that my reply will reveal the workings of my mind. I look and look, but all I see are strange blobs and dashes on a piece of birch bark. You have an odd expression on your face. I say nothing. I don't like you.

Graphic score of contemporary music. Avant-garde. Abstract. You wouldn't know the piece, but some of it's instruments would be familiar. There are rising flurries of westerlies, textures reminiscent of wayward scattered birdsong and a strange insistent barely audible creaking sound like awkward breath.

Map like a route between orange rocks. You might think you recognized that kind of rock formation from a walk you did in Spain all those years ago - the one that nearly killed you when the rain came down and you sat crying against a towering wall of rock, the only thing you could see. To avoid the terror you felt at feeling so lost, so invisible, so insignificant, so battered by the elements, you followed the lines etched by weather and wear and time with a cold shaking finger. When you are held captive in boring meetings, your finger seems to remember those patterns and traces them on the table, or scribbles them on the edges of a company notebook. 

Layers of old cracked paint gone pale and thin on a swinging gate to an abandoned house, left for years in the blast of rain and sun without a new coat.

Strange monkey mask face with huge eyes. Up to mischief and magic. A snake head emerging from a shape like a brain - a hint of the grotesque and the haunted.

A sheen of gold dust. Proof that fairies exist, leaving pathways to another world hidden away from normal view.

In my pocket - the jacket I haven't worn for a week, I find another tiny scroll. When I try to stretch out the coil, it flakes away into pieces.

Picking courgettes in the rain

Today, it rained. Not just 10 weak drops. Proper rain. I have been waiting all week for it to sweep in. So have my courgettes. Anyway, now I am happy on 2 counts because I have just made and eaten a delicious courgette soup. I wanted to write my first 50 word piece today, so here it is - no surprises about the subject matter!

The breeze snatched at trees. I pulled a few hands of shallots from dusty soil, rubbed dirt from their skins. When the slanting rain began, I stepped into a colour jungle of golden fish mouth flowers intertwined with shocked orange nasturtiums to pick you. Then I ate you for lunch.

Day 29

Today sees the start of my second month of blogging and I want to have a bit of a review of how it has been so far. When I set up the page, I remember how my main wish was for this to be an adventure. Well, it has been and I am so pleased that I set out to explore it.

Turns out (a huge surprise to me) that I have posted every day. Sometimes these pieces come from ideas that have been bubbling in my journal, which is what I expected I would do. But it seemed like a blog was the perfect place to open up a blank window and just go for it and see what evolved. I knew that I didn't want to get involved in lots of nit picking and rewriting. Instead, I wanted something that was fresher and less polished, and that possibly revealed a new flavour. I'm not sure what it is yet, but I like it. Anyway, the scribbler in me is thrilled about all of this as well because my 'normal' writing - in notebooks with a pen - has blossomed as well. There are lots of interesting ideas on the go all round.

One of my other aims was to let this project have a life of it's own, to let it find it's way. So, there have been a mix of pieces, both true and imaginary and I just go with the idea that seems to be the most vibrant at the time of writing it. Pick an idea and begin. This has worked so far and I haven't begun any pieces here that I haven't seen through.

The whole process thing fascinates me - like when I frightened myself last week when it all got a bit serious regarding one particular project - but my main interest is the writing itself and how to keep it going, because basically, I have rediscovered that writing makes me happy and I am more ME when I write every day!

Somewhere in all of this, my thoughts about my writing aims have opened up towards looking at lots of different possibilities. This is as exciting as it is scary, but I am working on just accepting that this is how its right now and just get on and write something else instead. Changes are on the way and I don't really need to worry about them.

A month ago, the perfect timing of a helpful kick start was all I needed to take a small risk and dare to dip my first tentative toe into this new venture. The effect of all of this has been profound. Connecting with others who are sharing their work on line has been a huge inspiration and motivation for me. Some of the work I have looked at is stunning.

Here's to more blogging adventures!

Courage - and getting on with it

Before the pen reached the notebook's waiting page, an incessant voice was already in full flow. Oblivious that it had been to talking to itself for days on end, locked in the dry darkness of a thin and tall airless cupboard, ranting without regard for sentences, it didn't encourage conversation or an interplay of ideas. It spat a ruthless assault, a barrage, a deluge. It was a voice on the rampage with no regard about when to hold it's tongue. 

"What about your non existent plot, what about your lack of research, what about creating interesting characters, what about originality and your message, what about challenging your readers, what about the illustrations and creating a truly authentic atmosphere and a sense of place, what about pace and space and the joy of words, what about leading readers on a journey, what about humour or drama, who is your ideal reader anyway, what will the format be, whose voice will be addressing the reader, what about rhythm and rhyme and sequence and technique, what about your lack of words today, your reluctance yesterday and the day before, what about your redundant project book waiting for all your fascinatingly good intentions, what about your pen's lonely silence, your inability to put any coherent thoughts together, what is it that makes you think you have anything to say, what about......?"

A dark intense stare swung around 180 degrees like the turning of a thick page in an old deckle edged book. Silence was caught in it's crippling glare. A search beam had found it's frozen prey. In a long moment shimmering with the raging adrenalin expectation of a fight, a strong and clear voice suddenly turned up it's own volume and shouted - "SHUT UP and just let me get on with it."

This piece was written in response to the fact that I have recently scared myself silly with the prospect of actually getting on and writing one of my new projects. The lovely first bubbles of excitement soon turned into a bit of fear because I spent too much time trying to be sensible and organized and planning things out and THINKING!! This then seemed to extend an open invitation to the critical voice that I have mostly learnt to ignore the rest of the time. By the way, it didn't actually say half of these things, just enough to stop me in my tracks.

Threads

It came as if by chance that idea. It arose as he sipped a pint of bitter, looked with a sigh at the crumpled weather page while sitting in a quiet corner of The Seven Stars under cobwebbed beams. His legs were stretched out awkwardly under the table to avoid the never ending limbs of Maisie, the pub greyhound. She was snoring in time with the hollow ticking of the old clock. At the prospect of five days of damp humid mid Summer gloom, it emerged like some thin wisp of wood smoke from a damp edged fire with a hint of sweet fruit buzzing from the spitting bark. 

There must have been a thread, something he had read earlier, a frail link from some chance comment or conversation but as his focus sharpened, other strange and beautiful layers came into view, each with their own seductive avenues to explore or muse upon. He felt like he was looking inside and outside his head at the same time. He had forgotten how it felt - to be inspired, to be smiling like this at his own internal ramblings and bubbling thoughts. How to hold them, how to carry them to the desk or the studio, remember them, recall them later or tomorrow in all this vibrant detail? 

He pulled out an old pencil stub from his back pocket and began to scrawl on the edges of the world news. The typefaces and layout had been changed recently and it didn't leave as much room for such spontaneous scribblings any more, so he wrote across the lap top ads and the cricket news, trying to record as much as he could from the frenetic maelstrom of his mind. The crossword grid enclosed a strand of an idea written in neat capital letters, one by one, stepping across the blanks all the way across, line by line. Waving politicians had new and unfamiliar words blossoming out of their mouths as their photos filled with notes. As his continuous stream of words came close to closing the circle around the four sides of the TV page, another wave of ideas hit in and he found himself running down the lane, with grabbed pages flapping in his fist and Maisie galloping beside him.

Rain dances at dawn

I'm leaning out of the window, savouring the smell of wet earth and wet city streets. We had a few drops of rain last night and I'm looking at the sky, craving more, like some part of me is dying of thirst. I came here to see a new part of the world, broaden my horizons, do something different for a while. I can't quite believe I am doing rain dances at dawn in front of the 24hr news channel to see if a storm cloud is heading my way today. 

As the plane made it's final descending loops over the city when I first came here, condensation rained down on us in big heavy drops, smacking against foreheads. They woke me up from my idyllic 8 hour sky watching reverie and I knew, with dread, that we were dropping into a heat wave. After flying low over the vast northern wilderness, I already felt cramped by the city below me and the odd mosaic of near identical turquoise pools on manicured lawns in a leafy suburb with a clean cut highway of shimmering metal heading into town.

We landed. The door seals finally sucked apart. A rolling bank of sweltering heat hit us and I felt the shock of it low in my lungs. The heat continued relentlessly for over 5 months. The papers reported little else. The longest, the hottest, the driest, reservoir levels way too low, no rain expected, please do not panic buy, pollution levels rising, concern for the elderly, are you drinking enough........

In all those months, I hid my obsession. I tried to make sure that every trip included the chance of getting into water - shady canyons at the weekend, floating on my back in the lake wishing the sky would change colour - any colour except this endless blue, beach walks after work, climbing past torrential waterfalls, sitting in streams, running barefoot on the dewy grass of the sports field at dawn, humid walks in the forest gorge, monotonous but lifesaving hours at the swimming pool, running through sprinklers in the park and on the edges of endless parched farmland, dipping my arms in the fountains at city square. Despite all of these fixes, it felt like all the world's water was falling down a huge plug hole and that soon there would be none, only cracked earth, dry stones and dust. I was longing for something else.

Walking the neighbour's curly haired terrier late one humid and airless night full of the gentle chat of tired people sitting out in the dark, he heaved a huge sigh in between panting, looked at me with pleading eyes, sat down on the street corner and would walk no more. I scooped him up into my hot arms and carried him home to slurp noisily from his metal bowl and the cool touch of the kitchen tiles on his paws. Next morning, I knew what I had to do. I called the airline and changed the return date on my ticket.

That night, I thought I caught a whiff of breeze coming off the lake. There were thin grey wisps in the sky, swirling a little. By the time I had eaten dinner the sky was on the move. I grabbed the cat from her tree den and brought her inside as the first flashes of lightening splintered the sky. As the rain splattered in, I went and stood by the neighbour's kids as they whooped on bikes and scooters down the hill with the wind in their hair. Their dad called them in as the rain beat down heavier and the skies darkened. He threw their soaked shoes into the corner of the porch, left their gaudy bikes outside. As I stood there drenched, smelling the wet air, he waved at me and joked  "Are you crazy or just English?" I went home and slept right next to the wide open window, spent the night cool at last, feeling like I could finally breathe again.

huggermuggerchugger

Her arms were huge and overwhelming as she lunged forward to embrace me in her bright yellow jacket. She was a beautiful welcoming beaming sun, bursting towards me, like I was her dearest friend. In her golden aura, a part of me was drawn to being embraced by such generous limbs in the anonymous space of the high street.

But she was a mugger, a chugger, a what-do-you-call-it? A charity fundraiser. Out on the street, her hugs come with strings attached. 

As her logo came into focus, as I caught the faintest hint of her neroli perfume, I made an impulsive swift dodge under her left arm and wrong footed her in the style of the best rugby forwards. I left her bemused, talking to herself and stroking her hair back into place.