Here we are almost at the end of March, fruit trees have been in flower for weeks and spring flowers are everywhere but the winter dies out with a sting in its tail. I reckon the last three days have been the coldest of all and if it stays this way we could be very short on wood. As it is the store of heavy logs is depleted. However Chris has discovered a store on the beach and he and Douglas are about to make a foraging expedition. Waste not, want not, pick it up and use it. Heating oil has been ordered as the tank is almost empty and we daren’t turn on the central heating for fear of emptying it completely and no doubt causing something nasty like an air block. Hopefully the oil should arrive today. Roll on April. April is the yellow month when the wild sage and broom are in flower. Van Gogh would have loved it. He called yellow god’s own colour.
Douglas tells me he thoroughly enjoyed “The Snapper” so it’s just as well we don’t all have the same tastes. I didn’t find “Jimmy Rabbitte all over Ireland” particularly funny when I read it but when, at table yesterday evening, he said it out aloud with an Irish accent, we fell about. Obviously his North of England roots are closer to the Irish than my hybrid lot are.
I once read somewhere that, when a person reaches my ripe old age, if he or she has half a dozen friends that go back twenty years or more they can consider themselves extremely lucky. Guess I am one of the lucky ones then as, just quickly brought to mind, I can count over a dozen. It’s not only death over the years that robs one of friends acquaintances, colleagues, some dying far too young, particularly with the advent of AIDS, it’s people who seem to disappear off the face of the earth and one never finds out why. This seems to apply particularly, but not solely, to Americans for some reason or other and one has to ask, what did I do wrong and whatever happened to so-and-so? Whatever happened to Ron Copeland for example or Tee Morris who was for so long in touch? And a good example is Andy Leech who we first met in London in 1983(?) when he was a huge fan of “Cats”. He and his lover came to Crete on a visit nine or more years ago, left, and we have never heard from them since. Why? An English example is Peter Mackie who we last saw at Hollings Farm, twelve years ago or more, when he visited with his wife and since when he has totally disappeared. I tried to contact him through The Writers’ Guild only to be informed he was no longer a member. Another even weirder example is Dave Penfold, last seen at Hollings Farm for the farewell party and never seen again. Even mutual friends in London have no idea where he is or what he is doing. So there you are, “whatever happened to?” applies to so many and I doubt we will ever know the answers. A shame really when they were at one time close and much appreciated friends.