Prullateus akkand Akkariel

Oh for those summers we used to have, when we thought it was always sunny. In reality, they were stuffed with rain and hail and thunderstorms; we just don’t remember them as much as the hot days when we dammed the stream and went home mucky as hell. It all just came back to me as I went for a short walk to get the office disinfectant out of my lungs. All the trees seem to have sprung into leaf in the last week or two and they stretch from here to the edge of the hills. There are a few church spires peeking out over the canopy but it seems to be this place, trees and then moor land. The wind takes everything and gives out a sort of complex white noise, with waves of deeper sounds underpinning the top end swish. This is the kind of temperature I like as well, the average for this time of year, warm enough to go out without a jacket but cool enough to avoid heatstroke. All this is good; it makes me happy to be alive.

And then it rains and I go out into the garden. I could just find space down there under the open door of the garage, to lie down and listen to the rain. Sometimes I find the dry corner at the front of the house, where I can stand without getting wet.

The baby likes to sit on a chair in the porch watching the rain and looking out for cars or people he knows. I suppose we have to stop calling him the baby as it has been possible to have a conversation with him for some time now. I sometimes call him The Boy but that is lifted from someone else’s family accounts. I could make up a name for him other than his real one but that seems wrong as well. He may just have to remain as The Youngest which seems rather sad.

Youngest is very happy at the moment; he now has his own room and stays in it all night which means that out sleep is uninterrupted by the sudden abseil of child from the cot onto his mother. He seems to have no fear of heights which seems to be a throwback to his grandfather who being a bridge engineer will happily hang onto the side of tall structures with no worries at all. I imagine my dad would have been quite happy as one of those steel workers you see in old B&W pictures, sitting cross-legged on a narrow beam with nothing else between him and a sticky end on 5th Avenue below. I do hope we don’t have to chase the child up anything high.