Home and Travel to Come.

Last week we received news that a good friend had passed away. She had been fighting cancer for over a year. Sometimes, when you meet someone you find easy friendship, quickly. It was this way with our friend and her husband. Our regret is not having the chance to know them as a couple longer.

We travelled North to the funeral, the service was simple and all about her and afterwards we had the chance to catch up with M. her husband, sad, lost in the crowd of it all. We were the friends who knew them from France, so knew no-one there but were made very welcome. Her personality shone through with the number of people she touched who came out to wish her safe journey.


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An odd time as we settle back in at home, and in a week will be heading back to France for a short visit. We stopped off to visit family on our way home. A nice big family Easter Sunday lunch to help chase the blues away.

See you all soon, there are lots I need to write about so I’ll meet you on the road for the next part of the journey.

Lake Balaton

Another slow day at the lake, we managed to finally get out of the hotel today at Eleven. Far enough to reach the Café. We have started a life of shambling from hotel to café to food and back. Interspersed with sitting around reading, and watching the foreign tourists, by foreign I of course do not include us, we are travellers, not holidaymakers. So why is the language so strange, why can we not understand even the smallest words? I have mastered Thank-you, an achievement I think, phonetically kuh-suh-nuhm. So, I have made a start. Though I wonder what they think about a random English couple sitting reading and chatting for hours in their café, while watching all the comings and goings and smiling enthusiastically when spoken to. Really they could say anything – we wouldn’t have a clue, unless they thank us of course but I think that is unlikely. We hardly bring much prosperity to where we place our largess, only make the place look untidy.

Tomorrow, I am off for a walk. Finding a map was interesting, including in our searches, the library, the tourist offices, bookshops, and supermarkets. Finally in a Bucket bookshop in Tesco’s Superstore mall. Hungary – Tesco gets everywhere. But anyway it does mean I will know where I am headed, and have a reasonable chance of returning. I’ll report back later.

Last post was I am told by WordPress, who keep score of this sort of thing, my 50th. A milestone, my half century, since I only signed up for postaweek I am ahead of the game and can rest on my laurels for a while. I hope everyone else on this postaweek trip is doing as well as they would like, or better. It has for me meant sitting and writing on a regular basis. Prose sometimes as well as poetry and I also have many new correspondents that without this I would never have found. Thanks to you all for the support.

A piece of work I have for hotels and strange towns. As we see others, in airports, on boats, in hotels. And all we see is a fleeting glimpse of them. Who are they and why are they here? We will never know.

Touching In Passing

This traveling transient beauty,
human, natural. Individual
in the traditional sense,
and the unusual that lets
human nature free
to roam for a short time.

To see a fraction of a story,
a glance through a door,
opening and closing
as someone passes through.
Touching us finely, touching
others and we are changed.

Edward Hopper

The hat is draped like her low spirits,
there is nothing outside this place except reflections,
the coffee sits waiting, smelling better than it tastes.
There was a time when this would be waiting for someone,
a lover, a friend, a forbidden fruit, because on the windowsill
there is untouched fruit. Opposite there is the empty chair.
Beneath the table demure legs. White legs,
white tablecloth. The downcast eyes,
left behind.

The picture that paints a thousand words. I love the Edward Hopper Paintings you see everywhere. This is for them. Because whenever you travel you see the lost souls.

People

Preaching Man.

On the high street each day,
rain or shine he’s there, the preaching man.
Claims he knows Jesus, personally.

A relationship that glosses his eyes,
makes something in him shine
when he speaks about it.

He tries to tell everyone this good news,
most just walk by, but every once in a while
someone listens.

And then you might notice,
this is a man, living in the world,
who has found
a friend.

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Black Haired Girl.

With her pulled back dark hair,
her high boots and high hem
neatly filled with stockinged legs.
Pale skin and long fingers,
painted nails and a featured body,
where have you been today
in the summer sun?

Who are you waiting for
at the café table
in the French summer sun,
in the heat of the day.
We both wait for someone,
watch the passing crowd
and drink our coffee alone.