3.17km today in the morning, day 2 of a possible 7-day heatwave. The sun beating down from above, steaming up from the ground below, me sandwiched in between! Molly lying down in a patch of dry shade, waiting for me to re-appear, she just couldn't be bothered. So hot!
But I won't complain. I long for summer when it is snowing and frozen outside, I love the warmth of these months, swimming in the sea, not having to put on a million clothes before you go outside. I just feel bad for the birds and animals who must be suffering in this heat-wave. When you have attained a certain age, or acquired a certain wisdom as a thinking person, you realise that there is always a bad side to every good thing. Like this weather, which has everyone so happy that it is so hot on a holiday, that the sea is 9 or 10 degrees hotter than it should be at this time of year, that it hasn't rained for a while. The sea being warmer does not bode well for various sea-creatures, and our dam is drying up, the water just evaporating away!
Lily is lying in the Lily-lounge under the fan tonight, which is blowing cooler air, but this afternoon I had to lure her out of there and shut the door, it was so hot I feared she was baking, that skinny little body covered with moth-eaten fur. And the piggy upstairs, I took her a swimming pool, a shallow plate filled with water, into which she plopped and lay there looking smug and cool. Funny little innocents, these strange animals with whom we share our lives.
I think this is the last of my sketches and drawings. Tomorrow I will have to produce a new one, I've kind of been cheating using all these.
In Campagny (continued)
"How did you think of that?"
"My mother always asks me riddles, questions. She has trained me to use my mind like fast steps," Luca replied. "Is that the answer?"
"Oh, no, but it is an answer I like."
The green parrot suddenly took off. Luca strained to see her path, but she disappeared higher up the mountain.
He felt that he should wait, so, pushing away the thought of his mother with her long grey braid swishing down her back as she walked in front of him, he stood and took everything in, the vast flourishing valley with its land-farms and small towns, the sea in the far distance with its water-farms that he recognised from Norena's descriptions. It was indeed beautiful. Hard for his eyes to adjust to, everything clean and bright.
Beeze re-appeared with another smaller parrot. "This is Farley, he will be the guard now. I will come with you. I like this boy. Come, Looker."
They were up on a ledge above the valley, and Luca took a long time to thread his way down through the rocks and slabs. Beeze was patient with him, practicing long swoops on the thermals,or perching on a small tree along the way and using the time to preen her graceful little wings.
He was actually surprised how many trees there were growing on the mountain itself, and then, seeing their pattern, realised that they had all been planted by people. His mother had been a planter of seeds, a raiser of young green things, a raiser of him. He felt a sharp pain remembering her loss. Since it had happened, he had only allowed himself small glimpses of the pain, but this one hit him unawares and he was nearly felled by the force of it.
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