2:51 p.m. - 2024-03-19
Woman's Hour

I met Jamie in my home village today. He was passing through in his truck with two of his labourers and had stopped to buy some lunch. We talked in the store car park for a bit about the current state of the Jam Social. We both agreed that Uncle Ross isn't happy and Jamie did raise an interesting point in that for all Ross's moans, he's never willing to make any change himself and I had to reluctantly agree on that point. He also said he'd noticed that John was quite distracted of late. Neither of us had any magic bullet solution to kill the apathy that's been creeping into the jam's of late. I left Jamie and his two labourers to have lunch and continued on my way.

Lunch for me was courtesy of my own favourite baker's shop up river, and a short drive away. Pauline, the red haired, pale skinned and grey eye'd serving girl was chatty today. She wears her short bob style hair with a single long bang covering her left eye. I watched her serve other customers as I stood in line and her bang stays in place covering the left side of her face. When she served me, she drew it back revealing her left ear and the most exquisite ear jewellery i've seen in some time. It was reminiscent of a Bajoran style piece, as worn by the fictional sci-fi character Ro Laren. She got my attention, and then suggested I may be interested in sampling a new savoury pastry on offer. I was tempted but I said I'll stick with my usual order, and perhaps be more adventurous during my next visit. She looked at me and chuckled. With my lunch paid for and the flirting concluded, I went on my merry way.

I'm currently sitting enjoying my lunch by the river in bright warm sunshine. My location is a few miles downstream from home, and the tide is low. Oyster-Catchers are systematically probing the mud flats with their long orange beaks for their lunch. I see a pair of Curlew's in their drab winter plumage doing the same, but more discreetly as if not wanting to be noticed at all. Two different kinds of birds displaying characteristics humans often do. The extrovert Oyster-Catchers and the shy Curlews. Each strutting their stuff and looking for lunch but in very different ways. I deliberated whether I was an Oyster-Catcher or a Curlew. I settled on somewhere in between. It often depends who I am in company with before I decide to be extrovert, or shy and retiring.

I think briefly of the backlog of chores, home tasks and project work that has been building up of late and it would be all to easy just to sit here enjoying the sunshine and fresh air all day. But I need to buckle down and get on with it all when I get home. The weekend away at Marion's was really my break from the everyday grind.

We are good at the moment. She is pre-occupied with thoughts about perimenopause and she is trying desperately not to bring it up and mention it in every conversation we have. She's late again, later than she was previously and she told me she had tested but it was negative. I'm unsure if there is a little hope in doing so but I guess it's a woman's prerogative to check on what her own body might be doing. We had the weekend to ourselves as her daughter was staying over with friends. It wouldn't have taken much arm twisting to convince me to spend the weekend in bed with her. I however had other plans which she agreed to. We drove out to the coast early on Sunday to spend the day by the sea and were blessed with sunny weather although it was cold and breezy.

She's changed again. She wore her cream woolly pom pom hat, the same one she wore the day I first met her and she's gone back to warm casual and more functional clothing. The girlie wardrobe she began dressing in since our second date seems to be less evident. She hasn't quite reverted back to casual walking trousers yet and wore a fetching wool skirt for our day out. I had a thought that maybe the honeymoon phase of our being together is approaching its end. We are relaxed together and that edge of everything being new is rounding off to a comfortable smoothness.

She talked candidly about the long summers she spent with her parents in Berwick Upon Tweed in a holiday trailer park by the coast when her mother was still alive. Summers spent by the beach, and trying to lick her ice cream cone faster than it was melting all over her hand during the long hot days in her youth. I recalled similar memories in my youth, especially the ice cream cone ones. We bought ice cream from a parlour in town and we exchanged ice cream kisses on a busy town centre street. The taste of sweet vanilla and raspberry sauce on her lips and the cool sensation of ice cream tingling on my tongue reminded me of summers long ago. Her kiss was sweeter than any other. No one walking past us even noticed us playing games with our ice cream and it was like being lost in our own world as people walked by oblivious to our existence in theirs.

One thing I learned about her at the weekend is that she doesn't appear to travel well in car journey's over an hour. She fidgets and wriggles around in her seat, gets bored easily, and flicks through radio channels and iTunes playlists while simultaneously chattering away about all manner of things. I thought at first she was just nervous being a passenger, or maybe the dreaded perimenopause was affecting her in other ways. She also needs cool air blowing in her face all the time, whereas I like a nice warm ambience.

She got all ranty when on Women's Hour on Radio 4 they aired a program about childbirth. Women were calling in to talk to the presenter about the ten stages of cervical dilation and what child birth does to their bodies. So yes, I had to listen to that whole programme while she commented on each callers point of view. I tried to join the slightly one sided conversation while keeping my eyes on the road and my hands on the wheel. Did she remember the pain of childbirth I enquired? Every woman does, she said. It was up there in the top ten of forgettable experiences. Next question she said, without saying anything. Shall we stop at this service station? They have a Costa drive through coffee shop? I could tell I'd made a good recovery.

A good coffee and a sweet cake can help resolve most moods and she settled for a while as we set off on the drive home as it started to get dark. Until...she started to rub my left thigh as I was driving. I'm not going to ask you if you have had car sex before, she said smiling towards me. I protested at the assumption and declared this little car of mine, that I've owned for nearly eight years has been a place of virtue since new. She laughed and continued to rub my leg. I didn't tell her this has been the only car I've ever owned that I haven't had some fun in.

We got home late after a slight detour down a secluded country lane. Only cows and sheep in neighbouring fields would have heard my horn beeping once or twice in the gloaming of a borders evening. And only the birds and bees were around to rush the word of anything they had seen to town.