Day 603: The Human Loire

Silky doesn't cover it. This morning's water was like the smoothest of caresses with cold in its blood. It washed into my pores and through my skin. It made itself me and me it. It's at its best like that. I'm in the belly of it, the basin, all pelvic, of the pond.

When I get into the water those first thirty seconds or so, I think 'how will we do this later in the year? how?', It's only August, still. The water is 16 or 17 degrees and still I feel its bite.

Yesterday's kingfisher didn't reappear, but there were other birds. A preening mandarin male with a rolling black-white eye. I watched him wobble but keep his dignity as I made waves by swimming past. A coot washing herself, shivering the water off her back. I watched it roll, again and again, in glistening white globules, penetrating nowhere, and still she dipped and shrugged. It was like walking into a dressing room or the shower block at a campsite: everyone was getting ready, doing their little intimate preeny things without so much as a glance to either side.

 

Yesterday, I had my tea cooked for me. How nice. And I had a skype with that Cuphead (a lot of laughing) and a call with that (Esther) Lilley Harvey (laughing, considering, weighing up) and a fabulous chat with FiSwe on her hands free. Today, an unexpected chat with Little Jean and my morning swim with Ruth, plus emails, texts, exchanges... so much good.

Up at the flat, the Clowns have left me flowers and a great big alien object called a DriBUDDi (capitalisation intentional, to do it justice). Lovely Danny Scott said that the last time he was here, the place was full of costumes. Red Bastard wears a gimp suit, if I remember rightly, stuffed with stuff. I'm not sure what the Loafs wore. It's a shame I didn't make it up to see their shows (or green-gimp-suited Stroid, The Human Loire, who makes me laugh without my having ever seen his show). But I had the choice and I took it, and I'm loving the quiet and the calm of here.

Thanks for good friends, good company, a clean and lovely flat, words in books and mouths that make me stop and think and FiSwe, who suggested this blog find its feet again. 21 days this time, every day. Let's do this thing. It's time.