I am in a reflective mood.
Admit it, you had me down as a lightweight, writing occasionally amusing prose while Rome burns, a one dimensional character. But I am two dimensional. I can be a deep file when the spirit moves me.
My anchor is adrift you see. The Special has taken one of the first planes out of Dodge to go see her little boy. I am left in charge of Country Joe and the fish, Sneaky, our pint sized cat, and the garden. Ay there’s the rub, THE GARDEN!!
You have no idea what consequences will follow if anything dies on my watch. I shake as I write the words. And yet we are in the fierce heat of summer. Whatismore, a fasting geriatric with urinary retention could piss further than the dribble that emerges from the end of the hose. This dribble is all that ASAT (may they burn in the fires of Hades) are capable of providing me with in the way of a water supply.
En plus the Watering Plan that the Gentle One (mostly) has left me is more complex than the assembly instructions for an IKEA triple bunk bed (with storage). It runs to several close typed pages and includes things like “Remember the red grasses behind the third rock on the far side of the deck but DONT (sic) wet the nearby geraniums (MOST IMPORTANT)”
To put it politely it’s fucking terrifying. I pine for the days when I was just responsible for a few hundred youngsters in Tooting’s Badlands. Retirement is meant to be relaxing.
So I have sought the shade of our Corona gardens and inspiration from the fish pond for a few convincing excuses. Just in case
“There was a freak very localised African Heatwave”. Nah! Had that
“Neighbour emptied some acid wash over the fence”. Nah! He is over 95
“Locust damage”. Might be worth working up some detail on Google. Yes! this, I think, may offer me some cover.
A few minutes with Country Joe and my terrors diminish. You might think there would be more in the way of action at a retreat for socially awkward badgers than in a goldfish pond. But you would be wrong. And probably not for the first time.
The bees buzz away around my artfully contrived rockfall at one end. The solar fountain spurts a gentle little ark that splashes playfully in to the limpid (what a great word) green waters. It is better than ASAT can manage. Gold flashes between the lilly pads and fronds of delicate cyperus alternifolius (alright umbrella plant to you) chart the swerving path of Country Joe and friends. They constantly surprise themselves finding they are not alone. It is better calming medicine than a pipeful of opium.
My thoughts turn to the swings and roundabouts of this Turkish life. Actually there is very little swinging here, not inside our silver grey retirement bubble anyway. If your taste runs that way you would be better off retiring to California.
But life is definitely a roundabout. And a roundabout with a constant traffic of people clambering on and off.
A couple of days ago I also took fond farewell of Baz the Builder. The Sultan of Sarıbelen has closed the shutters of his mountain Şato, retrieved his lucky fluffy dice from the rearview mirror of the beloved Tofaş and headed back to the cloud hung reaches of Craggs Bottom in the frozen North of England. He sent me a picture via WhatsAp of a fulminous sky and barely visible rocky hillscape with the caption “Actually quite refreshing”.
Possibly the most desperately unconvincing piece of writing since the Iraq Dossier hit Prime Minister Blair’s desk seventeen years ago.
Our ten years of an otherwise very happy life in Turkey is regularly unsettled by the departure of friends as they step off the Kalkan roundabout, whether temporarily or permanently. For some, as in a marriage, there seems to be a seven year itch as people fell the pull of the mother country. Others live between two countries and only visit for extended stays. Others again take the opportunity for extended travel.
All of which makes for a fairly constantly changing peoplescape.
Until Corona struck. Then we were all forced to settle down for four months. I wonder how that will play out in the longer term. What changes it may usher in. Because change there will be.
Strange times.
And that is enough reflection. Time to water the garden
NOOOOOOOOO!