TheBanyanTree: Nothing wrong with predictable

[John Bailey]

Monday May 3, 2004

NOTHING WRONG WITH PREDICTABLE

It's been a Bank Holiday here today -- the annual public holiday for May 
Day. "It'll rain, you see if it doesn't," is what most people have been 
saying for the past week or two. "It always rains for the May Day holiday."

When I got up this morning I carried my mug of coffee to the study window 
to see what was up. About five-thirty it would have been, well past first 
light but not yet bright enough to read newsprint. There was a line of 
golden sunrise along the skyline to the east. Overhead, though, the sky was 
uniformly grey, sullen and not looking at all happy with itself.

I focussed on the positive, turning back to look at that golden line and 
pinning all my hope to it.

"We might just get away without a drenching, Dolly," I said to a yawning 
Mega-cat who'd come to sit beside me, looking out at the morning. "But I 
rather doubt it." She gave me no answer, though her verdict on the day was 
pretty clear, and the next I knew she'd poddled off back to bed, having 
grabbed a quick snack on her way past the biscuit bowl.

When I got up from my desk for my second mug of coffee the sun had 
disappeared altogether and a steady downpour had begun and, as the rest of 
the household woke and started about their business, the rain settled in, 
heavy, firm and disapproving. The lane was completely quiet all morning, as 
if most folks had taken Dolly's line on the day and gone back to bed.

I hate it when dour predictions turn out to be right.

My morning writing session done, I settled down at the table, book in hand, 
and started out to watch the rain run down the window-pane. I can spend 
hours doing that without even trying but this time I was interrupted before 
entering into a nice warm fugue state.

"There's a whacking great garden snail on one of my new water irises," 
Graham said with much alarm, doing his own looking out of the window thing. 
He's got the same feeling for slugs and snails as I have about spiders, 
rodents and snakes. Sheer horror.

"Must have fallen in the pond and taken refuge there to save itself from 
drowning."

"I don't care. I don't want it eating up my new water iris."

"I'll nip out and dispose of it, then."

"Don't be silly. You'll get soaked."

"Nah. I shan't be out long enough to get wet."

I was wrong, of course. Another dour prediction satisfied.

"You'd better go change that t-shirt."

"Oh, it's not very wet. It'll dry on."

"Grrrr."

So I went off to put on a dry t-shirt and was captivated by the sight of 
Dolly snoozing happily on the bed, feet in the air and tummy exposed to the 
full glare of world publicity.

"You're a disreputable old baggage," I said as she turned over, yawned, and 
gave me the gently tolerant version of her glare.

"You do look most awfully comfortable, though."

She wriggled a bit, inviting me to give her a bit of a cuddle. Which is 
what I did. Dolly doesn't snore, but I do. Especially when I'm all comfy 
and giving a Mega-cat a bit of a cuddle. Well, say I, if you're going to be 
predictable, be really predictable. Nothing wrong with predictable.

--

John Bailey   Lincolnshire, England

journal of a writing man:
<http://www.oldgreypoet.com>