"Can we make swords now?"
asks great-nephew, after his hot, bounding visit to iBounce, a trampoline and sports centre on the industrial estate in Exeter.
"Have you still got that bag of wood? ( the dumpy bag of kindling in my garage) And we'll need a pen knife... and we need to make three swords to have the battle."
He has recently been immersed in the Lord of the Rings videos.
"And how can we make them silver? And what about the handles?"
His grandma, my sister - who is forever keeping up with such demands from his wonderful imagination, with her own practical, creative one - suggests Duck tape.
I find one of Robin's old penknives....and within minutes she has fashioned a sword out of a short flat piece of pine, smooth edges, no sharp point of course, and wrapped round in silver tape, which he is very happy with.
For our swords he says we need strong sticks from the garden....which we pull out of a pile of fallen hazel branches which I've been collecting, under the silver birch trees. We wrap the ends in brown sticky tape (left by the removal men last year) to indicate handles.
And then we have target practice - taking turns to hit out at a bigger heavier hazel branch which he stabs into the hollowed out stump of the third silver birch.
After a sausage, mash, beetroot burgers and ice cream with raspberries supper we have running, chasing pretend fights with our swords, which are not just any old swords but those of Aragorn and Leogolas and I'm not sure who mine belongs to, but apparently it's too short...and I'm not holding it correctly....
"No, like this, you have to hold it with two hands".
And I'm not sure if we are also fighting hoards of Orks as well as other malevolent monsters bent on our destruction.
But it doesn't matter because what matters is that he and his grandma are running and laughing and chasing each other in the evening sunshine in the full length of my unused garden.
While his father, her son, is in the hospital, throwing up, after enduring his fourth round of chemotherapy treatment.
The ever present, invisible sword of pain and grief cutting out the light.
Lovely to hear from even though it's a weekend, and in spite of the sadness which permeates the post. xx
ReplyDeleteThank you dear Belinda. I'm a bit out of synch with blogging....was too tired last night... but had time this morning. I read something recently about every writer has their best time of the day/night for writing....not sure my night time habit of blogging is best for me....but finding it hard to change! Xx
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