People to see

Rain in the early morning, and again while I’m working at my desk, the change of light that signals rain is coming, the grey sky with the yellow leaves against it. Rain in the evening while I’m beginning to cook, waiting for J & N to come home (N is staying with us til she can find somewhere else to live). Two hot water bottles, one for my lap and one for my feet. A reason to have a cup of tea every few hours: strong black English tea with milk; delicate, almost chocolate-flavored Darjeeling that S brought me from India; fennel tea; sweet mint tea with honey and a few leaves from our unkillable mint plant in the tiny back garden. A few fuchsia buds outside coming in pale and ghostly like undersea animals. Bright orange lantern plants in ditches in Belgium, folded carefully into a tupperware and brought back in my luggage to shine above my desk. Walking through the university park with J & N, making photo assignments and not caring if no one follows through. The smell of leaf rot and dry cedar and pine needles in the passageway behind our terrace of houses. Arrival of pumpkins at the grocery store, a new library card. Trying to teach myself the discipline of drawing, writing, and reading daily again. Sewing small things by hand. More rain, this time battering the window in thin stripes.

So here are some photos.

Tom enjoying his lunch on my desk. So, you may ask, is this going to become one of those blogs where the person replaces what was previously “thoughtful commentary” and “artful images” with tacky closeups of her “cute” pet? Probably. But how could it not when HE IS SUCH A CUTEYWOOTYPATOOTY. Ahem. Please strike that from the record.

Sometimes, especially if I am going somewhere ‘local’ (a neighboring town), the train will be one of these old ones with red velour seats and scuzzy fogged-up windows. I really like them. They remind me of this.

We got back from a week in Belgium and these green tomatoes had all turned red (and yellow. Some of our plants are yellow tomatoes. I hope the excitement we live with daily is not too much of a shock).

Waiting at the Beeston station on my way to Belgium (via London, on the Eurostar), I finally got a picture of something I’ve been trying to capture since arriving here four years ago. (Having typed that, I realised that my actual anniversary is on the 18th, which means I’m not talking about an approximate four-years-type situation, but am approaching FOUR ACTUAL YEARS in England. Surely there is a medal for this.) I love the railway workers in their neon suits. The guys down the platform from me were complaining that the work might delay the train, but frankly I’d rather workers delay it than a derailment. Dudes. Stop yapping and appreciate their work. Oh right, it’s England: Carry On Complaining.

While we were in Belgium we spent some time with J’s dad at a place near the Schipdonck Canal. I can’t believe they are talking about widening this. That would mean tearing out all these trees. They want to do it so the canal can be a more viable shipping route (eliminating some need for trucks) but…couldn’t they just make the boats smaller? It would be such a loss to cut down these trees. In so many ways.