Life out here has settled into a quiet autumn rhythm. Most of the harvest is in but the spare part for the all singing all dancing cabbage picking/packaging machine is still missing. How long can it take to manufacture a replacement ? It goes without saying that the farmer is not happy. In the garden the salvias and the rose hips share the same cheerful red. Nature is still providing splashes of colour as everything else in the garden dies back.
This morning there are four bees on the lavender beds. The lavender is getting long and stringy and in need of cutting back but we'll wait until the last of the bees go before starting work. I thought the swallows had all left for Mauritania some time ago but there's twenty or so doing daredevil aerobatics over the potato sheds. The last of the birds to leave always provide us with this Cirque de soleil farewell. We stand and watch them as they dart around us. I'm convinced they love an audience and do this on purpose.
The arrival of 10,000 fresh faces into a small town with a population of 15,000 makes finding a table in a restaurant impossible. We try the new Mediterranean and the old standby Indian but both are already 'reservation only' by seven thirty. The fresh faces are also heading off in the other direction. The farmers eldest son headed back down to Edinburgh yesterday and daughter heads off to law school today. The youngest has two more weeks at home before Cambridge beckons. It only seems like yesterday that the World Cup was the pivotal point in life.
A quick detour to the bookstore. One of the staff is unpacking boxes and plonking their contents in piles on the floor.
Written in the blog on this day 16 years ago a memory of a local farm lad. I wonder if the Royalton still exists on 44th Street and if it's lost its late 90's chic ? How time flies. The last line was true then and holds as true today :https://wilfanddigby.blogspot.com/2010/09/evil-mens-footprints.
13 comments:
Hari OM
Thanks for that flashback post... and the counterbalance of life lived in a wee Scottish university town... YAM xx
Very, very true. The world changed that awful day.
I wept again rereading that post and despair at how we do not learn and the suffering and loss of innocents goes on.
What a heart aching post, the memory of that day is etched into most of our consciousness. A bit like when JFK died, we remember vividly.
I remember that post well. My daughter, who was born in 2002, asked us this morning if we knew what day it is. My husband responded "Friday," but she knew what day it really is, and it was somehow reassuring that someone who was not even born then can understand at least a bit. We still have evil men passing, unfortunately.
Our swallows seem to have departed, but there is a flock of maybe 50 or so Indian ring-necked parrots living in our village. They gather every evening in one big tree and then head off to who knows where. Their departure from the tree currently coincides with Charlie's evening walk, and it's really something to see them all flying straight down the middle of the street. They fly so fast you have to listen for their calls and then quickly look up or you'll miss them.
Life can be so bitterly hard.
Your post from 16 years ago was both beautiful and heart-breaking for the parents who lost their son. Of course, the only thing to smile about was your description of the enthusiastic six-month old door greeters - such a common but never old experience for dog owners. Thank you for sharing.
Take care today.
I cried when I read your line that reminds me that evil men still pass our doorsteps. This morning I watched the minute by minute coverage of the attacks of 9/11. The stories are endless. I pray that at some point the world will learn and finally find peace.
I'm sitting at home, watching the Reading of Names at the 9/11 Memorial, reading your post from 16 years ago, with tears welling up. This event touched the entire world, personally and politically. Thank you for being a bright and comforting spot in so many peoples' days.
A heart wrenching post, and an eloquent tribute to a fine young man who like so many others lost his life on a day touched by evil.
Oh the sadness...
Never forget, forgive perhaps...but also always remember the courage, brotherhood and human kindness shown by so many on that day. The worst and best of humanity at the same hour, really. Y
May the lad from Forfashire, with all the others, rest in Glory forever, and may peace be with their loved ones, and all the survivors.
Thank you for the link to your old blog post. It is hard to believe it is 25 years. The morning of 12 September in New Zealand (as NZ is ahead in the time zones) I walked up my driveway to collect my printed daily newspaper. Out on her front lawn, dress in pyjamas with a blanket draped around her shoulders was my neighbour in shock. Her family left Asia for a better life here, and her sister's family left Asia for a better life in New York. Her brother-in-law worked at the top of the towers. My neighbour had been phoned by her sister after the first plane - back inside, watching live tv thousands of miles away, we saw the second plane hit. Such a horrible loss of so many lives.
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