It's turned hot again; even the hibiscus flowers are withering now.
My mind keeps going ... elsewhere, elsewhen. England, mostly. Buses and trains, staircases and streets and shops, woods and parks and suburban gardens. Dapple of shade, chuckle of water over stone, crunch of dry mown grass. Rough nap of upholstery, slap-and-squeak of windscreen wipers, trickle of raindrops on steamy windows. Poplin summer coats with shiny gold buttons, white nylon knee-length socks, and scuffed Clark's sandals in red or blue. The cadbury's-flake texture on the handle of my first umbrella. Tar melted into sticky, glistening black pools at the side of the road.
Sticky bud-casings and the tiny pink and yellow spots on horse-chestnut flowers. A meat-paste jar -- small, thick, scaly-textured glass with a smooth place for the label -- holding a single geum flower on a windowsill. Rose-petals, fallen but still smooth and sweet and curved. Oily smoothness of privet leaves. Tiny drops of nectar sipped from florets of lilac. Biting into the juicy knobbed joints of grass stems, and trying to whistle on the broad scratchy blades. Swifts swirling above the woods at dusk. Red Admiral butterfly on the mint; earwigs on the dahlias behind the coalhouse; woodlice under the loose edging stones above the rockery.
