There You Go

They say you shouldn’t have favourites but I guess the nature of being human is that invariably you do. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I dunno… It’s a thing… I think maybe it’s nature’s way of balancing things out…

It’s been a week of mostly losing the will to live… A week of being tired of picking up other people’s slack… A week of trying hard to zone out to mind numbing stupidity and not always succeeding… For my sins in life I seem to have been lumbered with an habitual moaner… Everytime I see her, something is always wrong… It’s too cold… It’s too early… It’s too tiring… Always too xyz, never anything remotely just right or even moderately OK. I mostly zone out the mood hoover affectionately known as Miss Goldiblocks… Sometimes I forget to ignore her and accidentally engage in conversation with immediate regret. The last conversation was such. I was speaking to someone else and asking them about the huge package that had been sat for three days unmoved, outside of reception. I asked if they knew what was in this 8ft high bundle wrapped in cardboard and black bin bags, all atop a pallet, inches away from the snow. A voice came from the backseat of the car – Oh! We had one of those delivered to our place too. Against better judgement, I asked – What is it? The reply came back

It’s a parcel!

Jesus fucking H Christ, no shit Sherlock! Against all odds, I kept the words in as I silently offered up a prayer – Please let it be a suicide booth! I’m going to shove her in it! (note to self – this attitude is probably why my prayers mostly go unanswered…)

So anyway, in view of me successfully not killing anyone nor throat punching anyone this week (even though I did get quite close and called a white van man a knob head (but that’s another story)), I think I’m marginally justified in have an odd favourite and as it happens this weekend I have been twice such blessed with the company of one of my favourites.

This morning, my shotgun passenger notices my annoyance that I can’t find anything on the radio other than shouty jangly adverts and repetitive news updates of covid stats… Hey Karen, you need music? Shall I hook up some sounds. I grin and he does the deed… I like his music, I like that he quietly sings, I like that every so often we sing together, sounding out favourite lyrics… I like that we drift in and out of snippets of conversation and bouts of comfortably not saying anything…

Hey Karen! That was so fucking weird yesterday! Those birds…

Yesterday, neither of us felt much in the mood for work. He said as much and I smiled and told him that a mental health detour was on the cards, we’d go off route, take in some scenery and if anyone asked – wow! We got stuck in monster of a traffic jam! And so we bunked off… In reality there was only a couple of minutes diffence in the timings but sometimes your mind can bend half an hour to make it seem like a couple of hours of blissed out, chilled road tripping…

I smiled as I thought back. I’d seen a large shape take flight out of the peripheral vision of my left eye. I’d called out – Hey, did you see that too? He’d replied – Yeah wtf?! It’s a how do you say it? An owl? I told him, yes, that’s exactly what we call it, an owl.

Karen, don’t you think that’s pretty weird? An owl in the day? Why is that?

I told him it was because there was magic in the air. He laughed – oh you think so?

Yes, I think so… Very much so… There’s another one!

He didn’t believe me. I pointed off to the right hand side roadside trees, directing his gaze to the second owl sat looking our way.

Wtf Karen?! Two owls! How did you make that happen?

This morning he asks me if I think we’ll see owls again. I pause to consider and deliver the news that no, there will be no owls on the agenda today… I check my rear view mirror, the road is clear. I slam an emergency stop. LOOK! Up there! Can you see it, sat on top of the telegraph pole? He bends his head to see around the sun visor and he cranes his neck… He is silent… Until he turns to me with big smiles – Wtf?! Is that an Eagle?

Nope, it’s a Buzzard. He repeats the word a couple of times buzzard… buzzard… You know your country is not like back home, your country is full of crazy birds…

Yup, you’re not supposed to have favourites but there you go…