Travelling

view from Mill Hill

WAITING IN BAHRAIN

 by me

  

The landscape to the East

 Is tilting fast towards the sun

 Clouds are being edged with pink

 Runway lights grow pale and wan.

That was one of those interminable waits in airports through the early hours - when every hour feels like three.

What I was thinking is how my travelling days are behind me.  Today I am shattered by two trips to two local hospitals, one shopping trip, and having to climb the flat stairs (lift still out).  However, this is what happens as you get older.

And I did do my fair share in my time.  Captain Butterfly's powerful wings still zoom him about the world though.

I joined him on his Butterfly transect, though I had to sit in a bench by the car park - a memorial bench to someone who also loved sitting there.  I did my studying, looking out over the beautiful downland to the English Channel - and met a lovely sheepdog and his owner.

Wimbledon has started. I think Jacks was up there today.  We used to love to watch it. I can remember when I was a schoolgirl - "You've got a good memory!" - that was Captain Butterfly (where is that fly swat?) - coming in from school, grabbing a bowl of strawberries from the kitchen and watching every moment of every match with my mother.   Remember the doubles team of Osuna and Palafox?   And Ann Jones?  And all of them?   I don't know if the glory has departed (for me) because i am old, or because there is now so much money in the game, or a bit of both.