April 27, 2007

Never never never salt

Up here at the cottage there is no line between inside and out; the domestic is only barely tamed. We will wake up with windows dripping on the inside, and grit underfoot. Newspapers are kindling. Bat’s wings flap in the rafters while we sleep out under the stars. The old board games have missing pieces, mismatched dice, and mice have ravaged the Monopoly money, leaving their droppings behind. And the screen door is ripped, which is how the flies get in, but if the hole was patched, the bugs would only find another way.

Nothing much else happens. Which is the very point of being here, fortunately and unfortunately. I picture cottage days constructed of blocks, only the same shapes, patterns and colours. Once or twice we’ll go into town for a diversion, but diversions get in the way of hours spent hot and sunburnt, prune-skinned and water-logged. Evenings are warmed round the fire always, with marshmallows burning on the pointy ends of sticks, and warbly old songs everybody else knows the wrong words to.

Fish and chips and vinegar, never never never salt