Ducks and All

Friday 4th March

Day 317

The brightness and blueness of the morning makes it feel like a holiday.

My husband’s client cancels.

‘Fancy going out for lunch?’ he asks.

I put yesterday’s hummous and salad back in the fridge for another day.

In our favourite cafe - two poached eggs, toast and chilli jam for him, cheddar, thyme and leek tart for me.

Afterwards we wander to the river in search of birds - find a display of rusty coloured, tufted ducks flapping and splashing on the water. A noisy mating dance maybe?

The tide is out. The estuary mud as glossy as melted chocolate, shimmering with a crowd of neck nodding avocets.

My husband drops me off at home and goes to buy oil for the car to appease a flashing red light on the dashboard.

Sun is slanting into the kitchen. I open the patio doors and sit on the cold damp step, offering my face to the sky like a hungry ‘tournesol’.

Three pots of tiny daffodils - yellow and gold centred narcissi - are also bending their stems to the sun. We took them from my mother-in-law’s garden after she died. They come back, faithfully, every year.

The pussy cat purrs and nudges around my knees then leaves me for his usual sunbathing spot by the rosemary bush.

A splashing and flapping sound calls my attention from my book. A lone blackbird dipping in the bird bath. Drinking not mating.