The long night’s rain has stopped,
leaving captive drops in the Erica “Exeter”, a heather that was one of the few plants to raise its head above the Bracken that ruled the croft when I was a child. It has grown into a small tree, bare-stemmed and, really, not very pretty in its wabi-sabi dotage.
When at this month of declining perihelion the sunrise strikes between the Oak my girlish mother grew from a borrowed acorn and the Cupressoideae I planted when Xenia was born, smacking those raindrops into a zodiac of diamonds, I realise afresh why I haven’t cut down the stag-horned old eyesore.
The splendour, even through the weather-stained window, is enough to drag me from the warmth of the bed and out into the morning air with my camera.
Holding it above my head I grope for the contact and, to the entirely synthesised click of a non-existent shutter, I fire its little pixels into what I hope will be a capture. I am cold, and go back indoors and into the bedroom, where The Elf, who still cannot subsume the monitory tones of the Boss Restaurateur even when half asleep, comments that I have no clothes on. Although older than the Oak we still sleep au naturel; when I was little we couldn’t afford pyjamas and I never acquired the habit save when travelling. The old wooden house moves a millimetre or two a year, but that does not, you know, count.
I go and make a jug of coffee and, climb back in alongside. I open my MacBook and slam it shut again, as the morning chill plus the crazy climate-change pollen has provoked sneezing on the Richter scale.
The Elf with wifely amusement hands me a tissue and goes back to her Tablet and the world of rescued animals, sick or celebratory friends and total strangers doing fatuous things.
The coffee kicks my brain open, and I initiate the arcane process called – I know not why – Bluetooth. Bleeps are heard and after a couple of slippery goes, my new images crawl onto the screen.
The camera has captured the dawn, but the diamonds are disappointing dots.
But there above the stag-horns is a green blob. It’s there in all the photos I took and so, not an aberration. My wife looks across and says
“Oh, there’s Venus! We’re two days into Scorpio.”
The green planet is there indeed, bisected by perhaps an insect or, a bit of space debris. I’m not going to get anymore information out of seven pixels, so I slap my monogram into the corner, save the image and return to the laborious updating of my website.
There awaiting Enhancement are two early four-foot paintings, homages to the Catalan Surrealist Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí, tho’ I denied such discipleship at the time, being slightly snobbish and more enamoured of the work of Max Ernst and my teacher John Tunnard, two paintings (I wish I could say “canvasses”; the boards are mighty heavy) that are titled “Venus in Scorpio”
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And, the galleries on this site WILL be restored before too long x