I awake still with a feeling of lethargy and fatigue. But the rain has started and the temperature is mercifully much cooler.
Around midday the rain eases and I put on my light boots and set out for a walk to Little Lawford, a round trip of about 45 to 50 minutes if you don’t dawdle. As I reach the path across the fields a light drizzle starts. The sky is overcast with variegated darker and lighter grey clouds accompanied by a cool breeze. My sort of day at last! But, really, what did you expect from a boy born in a narrow steep sided valley in south Wales? I am willing to bet that my parents first took me home from the little Tredegar General Hospital wearing their macs!! My parents. Cancer claimed my mother’s life and her mother before her. My father, heart disease. At least with cancer you get time to say goodbye.
A tree blocks the path. That ain’t stopping me. I meet a woman walking her lovely Border Collies. We stop and exchange pleasantries on dismantling and cleaning shower and sink waste plumbing. Who said us British are emotionally frozen!
I reach the ford at Little Lawford and dawdle at the edge of the River Avon viewing the opposite bank, accessed from the path I took last week.
In the evening I listen to the improvisations on Handel. I wallow in the gorgeous counter-tenor singing. I loves a good counter-tenor, I do. Now an alto voice with clarinet obligato accompaniment by Gianluigi Trovesi. Life is good. The rhythm mutates to a Latin American base. Yes!! I bet those critics of this CD wouldn’t be able to talk to a stranger about waste water pipes!
Forget the Rules 