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Driving down south and the July day is parched. All our windows are down along the motorway and the wind feels like a holiday-wind, the type where you step off the plane and it hits you, fragrant and hot, right in your face. We walk along a dry, crackling field, sun-blinding, grasshoppers singing, impossibly beautiful.
People are gathered ahead of us in a woodland glade, a band playing Nick Cave gently at the front, and the light picks through the leaves above us. It’s dusty, there are banners hanging from branches, plenty of cherubic children, and an immaculately dressed bride and groom.
We watch them literally tying the knot, and as they walk back down the aisle together the congregation turns to them, faces following them as sunflowers do.
Later, heading to bed, I bump into another guest, staggering slightly in the dark. “I’ve got everything I can out of the day, Jess, it’s time to call it a night,’ he says.
What a great way to live your life, I think, slightly worse for wear myself. Get what you can out of the day, and then call it a night.
I am standing on a forecourt in the blinding sunshine on an industrial estate lined with flattened Monster cans, old tyres and the odd mattress, waiting to drop my Mini off for auction.
We are directed to an office which is both very hot and very bleak, and I watch a young man who has entered with a handful of ice creams, including some pops that looks like antifreeze. He catches my gaze, looks quickly away, but then begrudgingly seems to change his mind and offers us one each. (Not the Cornetto though, sadly) My thighs are sweating too much to say no.
I wait for the man who is doing the inspection, dimly aware that sucking on an ice pop as a 36 year old isn’t the assertive, ‘there’s no marks on my car’ demeanour I should be adopting. But it’s sweet. And most importantly, glue-tongue cold.
The man arrives, and is joined by another one with an iPad. ‘Go and wait inside’, he says. ‘We’ll be twenty minutes.’
Opting out of the hot box that is the office, we choose instead to stand on the blazing tarmac, witnessing the hideous rigmarole that is the inspection. I feel like someone is going through my Google search history, or possibly my knicker drawer, pulling out individual choices and holding them up to the bright, terrifying sunshine.
The man has a camera and is shooting every possible detail of the car - underneath it, every angle of each seatbelt, under the wing mirrors.
P looks around the lot. ‘There’s a lot of very flashy cars here’ he says, making conversation.
‘Well,’ the man says, ‘a lot of people have to return them because they can’t afford the finance. It’s very sad.’
‘Ah. I’m trading in for something electric.’ I say ‘my car’s not flashy though, is it?’
He looks seriously at P, then at me. ‘No - no I’d say yours is bang average.’
Good things to click on:
A hopeful radio show that will also make you laugh
This landed on my doormat and it’s wonderful
Really loved staying at this pub this month (twice, as it happened)
I’ve been working on this product for more than a year and am very excited it is nearly time for you to add it to your bath…
In the middle of a serious conversation with my parents. Suddenly, mid-flow, see dad raise his hand to his mouth and say firmly ‘END WORKOUT’ to his watch.
“When you are a young person, you are like a young creek, and you meet many rocks, many obstacles and difficulties on your way. You hurry to get past these obstacles and get to the ocean. But as the creek moves down through the fields, it becomes larges and calmer and it can enjoy the reflection of the sky. It’s wonderful. You will arrive at the sea anyway, so enjoy the journey. Enjoy the sunshine, the sunset, the moon, the birds, the trees, and the many beauties along the way.
Taste every moment of your daily life.”
―Thích Nhất Hạnh,Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society
When I kiss it, my grandmother’s cheek is as soft as the finest suede
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