Summer Follies


It's morning. Pigeons chatter. Window open to sunlit breeze, to a pleasing chill that wafts over bared legs lying wryly on a guest bed. We are in Plymouth. Briefly one has dreamt of a pigeon teaching golf. It advises wiggling one's bottom and aiming into the sun: and be sure to squint, it says.
Golf?
Legs do not want to move. Everything is post-party dehydrated, aches from overindulgence. I had misjudged my tolerance for something; alcohol, buffet food, dancing, heat; a stamina of some kind has been undermined. Poor stomach, all pressed with that purging heat.
Tentative toast and water begins the restoration process.
Happy 40th Birthday Samantha Redmond! Another glass of water, sip by sip, held up to the light in the kitchen and it glints like sequins. I have brushed my teeth, am enlivened by the mint.
I am able to put my day clothes on, the right way around, in the right order. Things bode better.
Here are sunglasses, a car window that winds all the way down. Mr drives across the city and the gulls cry and pigeons watch from rooftops and it's sunny and it's Saturday and see all the girls in their summer dresses and we all know autumn is nearby.
We find the next address easily, in spite of all those streets; are greeted at the door by our daughter-in-law, her arms full with our littlest grandchild. Baby Girl has a chuckle to share. If she has too much milk she finds regurgitation merely pragmatic. We look at photos of her, how she is blooming, how she lies so content in her Daddy's arms, how she has elfish ears like her Auntie. We look at her, she chuckles, she curls into Grandad and sleeps, while her Mummy tells tales that her Daddy was boozy sick at the V Festival. I recall that early in his paternity leave my stepson went to play golf; his wife has a loving air of indulgence for these follies.
Wiggle your bottom, aim into the sun, be sure to squint.
A smiley squint is best.


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