Seasons
I stretch, placing the half empty glass of iced tea on the green ironwork table that's within easy reach of the hammock and contemplate my surroundings, I am here in my garden with four days holiday before me and the comforting thought of not having to struggle onto the eight-twenty to Euston in this existing heat wave. A faint breeze ruffles the pine trees at the end of the extensive lawn exposing a grey squirrel suspended upside down on his way to the ground while over head several swallows swoop and glide in the humid air their tswit, tswit and weet-a-weet sounding sharp and resonant with the sun reflecting off their white underbellies. The temperature is well into the eighties and according to the latest BBC weather forecast it's going to get hotter and I hear that there are several traffic jams on the M5 to the West country for the holiday period, but to lay here on a Saturday afternoon with nothing to do except ponder the next subject set for the writing group is my idea of Utopia. The congested motorists are not the only ones suffering in this extreme heat, the ground is dry and hard and the flowers in the herbaceous border are wilting but with this hose pipe ban there is nothing much I can do as it's such a long struggle down the pathway with the watering can and two galleons of water is a somewhat heavy load to lug all the way from the kitchen tap, so to hell with it and I take another sip of my iced tea cheered by the thought that a liberally iced gin and tonic would go down very well after this evening's meal, the trouble is evenings are now drawing in and it is now dark by four thirty, that is the only difficulty with this global warming it does throw the seasons out of kilter and here in two days time it will be Christmas.
Short story by Toonist
Read 717 times
Written on 2011-01-09 at 13:52
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