Surprisingly lively considering the time - but I did go to bed at 8.30 last night. Brain always works best at this time of day so decide to put it to good use.
Coffee first, but even before that Jack - our deaf, white cat appears from his nightly sleeping spot somewhere in the garden and sleepily asks for food. Coffee on the terrace. Not much to see at this hour: stars, a satellite overhead, a small red dot in the sky - Mars. Streetlights around the village, a lone car heading down the road to the harbour, the outside light under the ever expanding vine. But much to hear.
The Sonar Owl - don't know it's real name, answers on a postcard please - beeps steadily somewhere in a ruin behind the house. It really does sound like one note of a submarine sonar or other mono-tone electronic gadget. Same pitch, same time gap between pings. A cockerel with no sense of time crows at the blackness. A couple of cats have a scrap around the corner and the slight wind harasses the sleeping olive tree opposite the house.
Occasional breaks in the noise, but the owl keeps beeping. An aeroplane moves mysteriously across the night sky, blinking lights and a far off faint rumble from its engines.
Jack reappears to start his security round. Checks the terrace for spiders and shadows. Finds my shadow on the wall and boxes with it for a while before moving on to check why the front door is open. Nothing untoward going on inside so he takes a nap break on the outside bench, not too far away from me.
Work to be done: inside at the computer, faint hum of electronics and soft clicking of keyboard accompanied by the owl now slightly more distant. Jack appears to sit beneath the desk, always wary of some assassination attempt on the person who feeds him. I suspect he has his own interest at heart.
Website updates completed after a second mug of coffee and a cigarette on the terrace. Still no signs of life other than animals that I can not see. It's too early for bells and the churches are all in darkness, recovering from the recent Easter activity no doubt.
My desk lamp throws shadows across the white tiled floor. Jack is on to it immediately, inspecting under the carpet where he suspects the shadows live.
Outside the streetlamp lights the side of the white building whose porch has not been painted since the last war. Our neighbour's washing blows in the breeze. The owl pings.
Time passes so quickly in large measures, has it really been six months since the last season ended? But time passes so slowly in smaller helpings. Three creeps to four as I contemplate another coffee and Jack decides where to sleep next.
|
