TheBanyanTree: You don't see as many matchboxes around as you used to

[John Bailey]

Sunday August 17, 2003

YOU DON'T SEE AS MANY MATCHBOXES AROUND AS YOU USED TO

Dolly and I sat out watching the rainclouds gather this afternoon.

"I don't think it'll come to much today, Dolly," I said, contemplating the 
thin cover. "But we might well get a good soaking tomorrow."

Dolly looked at me somewhat askance. She does that. It's one of her ploys 
to make me think she doesn't understand me when I talk to her. It doesn't 
work of course. I know full well she gets at least the spirit of what I'm 
saying. So far she hasn't responded in yer actual words and that's just as 
well, I suppose. I'd have to take myself in for a thorough check of my 
marbles if she started talking back to me.

Anyway, leaving aside the benefit of a cat you can talk at, it wasn't long 
before the first misty wave of light rain swept across, dampening the 
pavement and making the grass think it was holiday time at last. And not 
long after that I felt damp enough to want to go back indoors.

"You coming in, Dolly?" I asked.

She gave me that askance look again, this time with don't be silly 
overtones, so I left her out there, savouring the smell of first rain on 
parched grass and soil and the rapid cooling that comes with it.

Welcome as it is after such a long hot, dry spell, there's a sadness to the 
changing weather. I can't help but feel something of a back-to-school 
melancholy in the air. I remember long, hot, white-dust summers when I was 
a kid, and how they always had to end with rainy days, new trousers and 
shoes and strict lectures on how important it was to make them last, clean 
and unscuffed. And how pockets were for handkerchiefs and not collections 
of pebbles, twigs, and interesting expired insects in empty matchboxes. I 
always promised to do better but I was an incurably scruffy boy who never 
did do well on the pulled-up socks side of life. Even now, emptying my 
pockets is not a venture for the squeamish, though it's a very long time 
since I put a dead insect in an empty matchbox for later examination. Or, 
indeed, put an empty matchbox in any kind of pocket.

Ah well. The green gold glowing days of summer fade and the evenings are 
already shortening. Time to turn back to more creative things than sitting 
in the sun talking to cats and wondering why you don't see as many 
matchboxes around as you used to.


--
John Bailey   Carmarthenshire, Wales
journal of a writing man
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>