Here, Thursday 10 March 2005

Here, a cloudless Thursday afternoon… the weekend toil begins its quiet, sun and aridity remain boil in riot, the hot wind blows crisp leaf away, cheap sparrows play their bread crumb tune. A matron pigeon looks down, aloof, two others land on the opposite roof like a 737, a practised breeze on an empty runway, air brake ease, a ladybird forages in play, in leafy plant bearing cotton cocoon. A tiny bird pecks and flaps without rest searching, then going off to its roof top nest in a tangle of plant of prickly brown, next, a tough one, with a lilac petal flower gown, thin sinewy green creepers keep the light at bay by a new encasing a small orange ball platoon. I water the plants, the sunburnt hosepipe in half-hearted flow; here, small white flowers, where the aloe vera struggle to grow, here, short leaf used to make laksa, Malay cuisine, the water flecks the off-white, rough mezzanine, a line of insect running there, pretending to play who can be the last poltroon. Then, some time later, Rhiannon, beaming like an emergent moon, her yellow jersey, a symphony of shape and sun, tells me that she, and three others have just won, in the district sports meeting, the under 12 gold medal place in the girls 4 x 200 metre relay race on a cloudless Thursday afternoon… Their teacher, Mr Chua, bought them dinner that night at KFC. How nice.