I’ve been dreaming of a return trip to Crete recently. Can’t be done, and not just because I’d have to pay for two airplane seats to accommodate my girth. A chap can dream, though. Dreams are free.
However, I was sitting thinking about my tree on the coast at Gouves, under which I’ve snoozed many an afternoon away, pretending to read a book in the shade. Well, perhaps I can’t visit, but I can at least have a look on Google maps.
Sad. The hotel has been enlarged out of all proportion, and my tree is gone.
Not just that, but the big rock I used to sit on at Poughkeepsie is now a car park.
Better not look for other favourite places around the world, or even at home in the UK. So many of the small things I’ve loved have gone, lost in the march of time.
Oh, sure, if I went back to Gouves now I’d find another tree, and no doubt there are other rocks in Poughkeepsie. Wouldn’t be the same, though.
Anyway, back to the present time and place, and it’s been another purely lovely early spring day, with blue sky and the sun strong enough to scorch winter-whitened skin if I were inclined to burn. I stood against the white wall in the back garden, smoking a ciggie, and Graham said I looked like an elderly Italian gentleman, darkening in the sun. No bad thing, that.
An observation:
Old lady: “Why have you taken to smoking again after all this time?
Me, smiling: “Because Jesus wants me for a chimney.”
Well, you have to laugh, don’t you?
