TheBanyanTree: No sunshine, no worms, no breakfast

[John Bailey]

He said "I don't like that we don't hear from you often enough."  So I 
return today...

No excuse beyond a bottomless laziness and an inclination to listen more 
than I speak:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday January 5, 2005

NO SUNSHINE, NO WORMS, NO BREAKFAST

I woke late, just around the start of official daylight, at about 8:30, to 
note a greasy orange smear along the horizon where the sun would have been 
on a clear day. It wasn't a clear day, however, and the cloud sagged down 
within minutes to completely obscure even this failed sunrise.

"Oh boy, Harry," I said to the little bundle of fur that'd mysteriously 
appeared in the crook of my arm as I stood at the window. "It doesn't look 
too encouraging out there today."

Graham went out a little later to fetch the steam wallpaper stripper from 
the garage, to return, shivering.

"Cold?" I asked.

"More miserable than cold."

Ah well. It went on like that all day. Grey. Still. About as welcoming as 
an outdoor coat that's hung inside the door on a cold, cold night.

I bundled up and went for my stroll about mid-morning. Not far, just to the 
end of the lane and back. Great clods of rich, fertile Linolnshire mud had 
been left on the road by a careless tractor, stretching from the field 
behind the Primitive Methodist Chapel (closed, dark and lonely, gradually 
falling into disrepair, too primitive now even for the most unambitious of 
the remaining Brethren) right past our house and on up the lane out of 
sight round the bend. I tried kicking one, carelessly. Bad move. Heavy, 
unyielding, and damaging to gouty toes. No harm done, but I sighed, 
discontent, and went on my way, muttering sotto voce about what a horrid 
day it was, how much I hate not being able to kick things... doing a good 
old grouse, in fact.

There was nothing in the day to lift the spirits here by the fenside. When 
I popped into Spilsby for bread and milk it was much the same, the air 
heavy and unmoving, filled with the sickly-sweet smell of over-boiled 
cooking oil from the main street chippie. An odd observation there -- 
there's nothing too appealing about fish and chips unless there's a good 
breeze to take the stink of them away before it's out-stayed its welcome.

All in all, not a cheerful day except for the one time when I exchanged a 
few words with a woman in the carpark, she seeking ten pence coins to feed 
the meter. Just as well she was of a mind to make a jolliness of it or I'd 
have renamed Spilsby the Town of the Living Miserables. Just for the day, 
anyway.

Back home Harry and I returned to our window, to look out at the sad, flat 
landscape under a sky that was not so much leaden as plain tired. Three 
plump blackbirds, made all the plumper by the cold-weather attitude of 
their feathers, sat in a ragged row, still, unmoving, waiting for a worm, 
any worm. They made a forlorn trio, looking for a breakfast that'd decided 
to stay a'bed.

"Oh, come on, Harry," I said. "Let's go and sit by the fire."

A dismal, unfeeling kind of a day. The kind you're glad to see the back of 
when the time comes draw the curtains over the window and turn on the lights.


--

John Bailey   Lincolnshire, England

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