One way journey

 

Where has it gone? At first, I could not wait to get rid of it. Now it only makes the occasional visit. And I know this might seem strange after all the complaining and longing for rain, but I quite miss the sun’s constant comforting warmth. With breakfast on the patio, bare feet and a silky shift dress we had every excuse for loafing about all day trying to keep cool.

And it is not just the heat; the light seems to have gone as well. It has all happened so quickly something has sneaked in on me from behind closing the curtains and turning the heating off. We are all in search of our long-discarded jumpers and jackets.

On the brighter side our surviving sapling trees cannot believe their luck after three months of hanging on every night until we came with the watering can, they are happily putting on new fresh green growth with a sigh of relief.

I wonder if some parents are giving a sigh of relief now that school is back. Some of my friends have been busy for a few weeks getting everything ready. Two of them have been surprised to find that as soon as their children in Year 6 returned, they were asked to think of the secondary school they would like to go to. I do not remember having a choice (there was only one). I had never even seen the Comprehensive School before I started term there. It was all very frightening and strange.

Since our train journey to The Fringe last week, I have been thinking of my elderly parents coming on a train to see me in Shropshire. They must have been frightened. I do not even know if they had been on a train before. Beeching axed their Yorkshire village train in the 60s so they used the van or bus. I bought them an assisted travel ticket so my mother could have a wheelchair at the station. They were to arrive in Birmingham and I raced to pick them up. But they were not there. I searched the platform, the train they should have come on departed, and the rail worker was walking up and down with the wheelchair shouting Mam’s name, but no one answered.

Eventually I found them huddled together at the very far end near the dark, deserted tunnel. They were rigid and still, Dad in his trilby with his best twill trousers and Harris tweed jacket, Mam in her smart new navy suit. I ran to them.

“I knew you would not let us down,” said Dad in a strained voice.

It is all a distant memory now, like the blazing, bright summer sun.

(Taken from my column in The Star)