Through a glass darkly...

i saw you yesterday. It was a lovely frosty winter morning with the sun shining and so much ice on the inside of my windows that they were no longer transparent. i was out in the Glen with the dogs and when i looked accross the gulley there you were. it wasn't YOU of course (i don't think!) but it looked like you in the distance, and the jack russell with you had a coat on, as your would have done, because of the cold..mine were all exposed to the elements, purist that i am. so i thought of you, and how much i miss you, and wish all too often that you were here to share all the hundreds of moments that would make us laugh, or smile, or even cry, together. and then i looked accross again, and you were gone. inside no doubt to a hot cup of tea...you never were one for the cold. or too much tea come to that. how you hated what you called the English habit of surviving on tea and toast instead of cooking a proper meal. mothers-in-law and irritation i guess, built up over time, all the minor hurts, the one lasting injury...i can remember Nana once telling me that i would never understand how deeply she missed her mother until i lost my own...kind, that, but true as it turns out. so careless of me, to lose both my parents before i was forty! "only the good die young".
Went to see Hugh's grave yesterday, all eighty-six years of him, i was in Tintagel with a client. The conversation turned to chivalry and men in armour and Prince Charming riding into one's life on a white charger. My client told me that she figured that being safe in prison with a bed and three meals was worth getting raped for...i should have known i was screwed when Hugh didn't know how to ride.