CONTENT
As I lay curled snail like beneath the warm woollen blankets with one of the dogs nestled in the crook of my legs gathering what warmth she can, I hear the magpies warbling outside my window. It is cold, and I should get up but know that now I don’t have too. I can stay here all day should I choose. Warm, cosy, lazy. No company desk awaits my presence anymore. No train expects me to board with other commuters. My days have taken on a more leisurely pace – the roses that beckon are now smelt and admired. The weeds that are spotted are whisked away immediately before their rampant growth spoils the pristine garden beds. Those jobs that could be put off till tomorrow are done today – for there is nothing else now pressing on my time. Life feels good.
There are days where I indulge myself with a feast of words. Devouring them voraciously, unable to refuse a single crumb, all else forgotten in a gluttony of self gratification. Even the dog’s wistful looks or dropping of tennis balls at my feet refuse to tempt me from my literary smorgasbord.
Other days are spent in a flurry of activity, cleaning and washing till everything sparkles like new at least for a few hours until a fresh layer of dust settles, dulling the shine – and my enthusiasm. Dust and dirt and drought are synonymous with this country. Things rarely get to the stage where one can write in the dust – but having said that it is amazing how quickly, left unattended, that stage can be attained.
But necessity calls – try as I might the sounds of everyday life are invading my musings, and years of parental discipline still kick in even at the age I have achieved. Slothfulness has never been encouraged or tolerated, and even though there are none to answer too old habits die hard.
There are dogs to feed,things to do, and today new seedlings to be placed into the warmed earth beneath the sheltering roof of the greenhouse. A rampant hedge awaits a barber wielding big shears to tame its unruly locks – there is only a week between a good haircut and a bad one and my hedge is very forgiving. It stretches in golden opulence along the front boundary, usually neat and restrained like a merchant banker, but occasionally leaping forth in excitement and a flurry of new growth quite unrestrained. Order and dignity must be restored.
At the bottom of the garden the river rolls by turgid and brown, still somewhat menacing after the floods, an adversary not to be trifled with. How quickly one forgets. For over thirty years it just meandered along, content within its own green grassy banks. On occasions it rose a little just to see what was going on around it, poked a few tentative fingers here and there in exploration, but lost interest pretty quickly and returned to its musings, but this year it broke forth with a hiss and a roar like a rampaging Viking set on destruction and pillage. It destroyed everything for miles around, raped and ransacked the land with no quarter given. Lives and homes were lost, and the tears of the nation added to the watery miasma that swirled and ebbed through the cities and towns. Then like a locust plague moved on leaving behind a trail of brown mud, broken homes, and shattered dreams. Now it meanders along in its own watercourse, as if nothing at all had upset it, though its banks are no longer green but brown, and festooned with broken limbs of trees and bedecked with miscellaneous treasures’ that hold no worth any more.
All the myriad things that make up our lives are infinitesimal when taken over all. Were we able to divorce ourselves from the land that holds us and fly like an eagle soaring high above on thermals we would see how small our lives really are. The problems and worries that to us appear huge and insurmountable are in reality taken worldwide in complete proportion. They do say God never gives us more than we can handle. We have our hands full at the moment, but progress is being made.
For today I can handle what I must – tomorrow is not here yet, so no sense in wondering or worrying about it. Life is good. The roses are in bloom, the magpies are carolling in the garden and the sun is shining. I have two dogs, family and friends who love me, and a richness of life that has nothing to do with money in the bank. It is a richness that money cannot buy – and I am content.
Maureen Clifford © 04/11
Don't hit me mummy I'll be a good boy and go in the corner with Bob 
You like them?
you aint that old 
is you 