SPRING : A TIME FOR BUTTERFLIES
Just as I was wondering if the children’s antics were amusing or highly irritating I walked into a pool of scented air. I didn’t know if it came from the white bush with small flowers or the bush with larger yellow ones but it was wonderful.
“Smell this!”
I called to the rest of the family.
Wendy said that it was wonderful too and that they had come across another oasis of perfume a few minutes ago. James said he was hungry and wanted to go home. Wendy told him that each time he said that we would stay another ten minutes in the garden.
Loulou walked ahead and then threw herself carefully on her coat claiming she had died of exhaustion.
Dash, when he saw her, bristled, arched his back, put his head down and looked like he would run away if he hadn’t been on his lead. His paws stuck out rigidly in front of him and he whined mournfully. It was only when Loulou told us all that she wasn’t dead that he agreed to walk round her and sniff her head.
I think I love that a day where I started off in Geilston Gardens with Dash the dog, got a home made hair cut that I am very proud of and ended up in Glenarn gardens with children who alternately begged to go home, wrestled with each other, played loud music on their phones in the quiet spot. Worried they would get burned to death when they smelt a bonfire at the top of the hill is how I want to remember these days.
Loulou doing all her artwork, in fact turning into an artwork herself now that she has discovered makeup; James teasing her unmercifully and pretending he never wants to leave his computer when, in fact, he seems to love it when we do stuff together outside. And this world of late spring/ early summer where the sky is often blue, there are flowers everywhere.
The swallows have come back and so have the terns and more and more often we see groups of seals sunning themselves on the rocks. It makes the world a vibrant place.
I had returned home from the memorial service of a friend the day before, someone vibrant, prone to highs that got her sectioned and lows that made her suicidal but such a wonderful presence. The first eight months of her childhood were spent in a baby unit after her fifteen year old mother had placed her on the hospital steps in Aberdeen. I thought she was wonderful but had lost touch with her.
It was a ten hour round trip to the service but good to be asked to say some words of goodbye. Her death is recorded as accidental and maybe such deaths are always sort of accidents.
Last night I slumped all of a sudden, when the evening arrived and realised I hadn’t taken my anti depressants for a week. In the morning Wendy teased me about it; told me she always knows when I stop my medication even when I tell her I haven’t admitted it.
We were asked to remember my friend with butterflies and bright colours, our trip, the next day; to Glenarn was the perfect setting for that.
(First Published in the Bothy Blether. photo - daffodils Geilston gardens Spring 2023)
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