SAD NEWS AND KILLER COWS

      Sad news from the Pink Cottage. I returned from visiting my parents in Toronto last Thursday night. Friday morning my mother passed away peacefully in her sleep. 
     My sister and I are heart-broken, my father is beyond grief-stricken.   My mother loved England. It was her birthplace, and the land she hoped to return to some day.  Jessie Kathleen Leszczynski loved dancing. She had a wicked sense of humor, loved a good glass of wine, was fascinated by haunted houses and Egypt. She loved gardening and flowers and all things green.  She adored her roses.  She loved the pictures from her homeland of the Pink Cottage. I cannot write at length about her yet... it's far too soon.  Instead I am posting the post I had originally planned. Thank you Saint Bill and Saint Tom for being there.  RIP mom.


      

     On Sunday mornings back in Los Angeles I looked forward to our ritual of reading the New York Times.  Outside the window the hum of the nearby DWP generator created a sort of white noise.  Crackheads on the streets occasionally shouted.  



View out over the DWP building

View out to Main Street

     After ten years of gentrification the hookers we recognized from the early years had all but disappeared replaced by straggling Nickel and Dime party-goers still staggering around stupefied after the previous night’s revels.  These sights and sounds were the familiar and comforting backdrop to our Sunday read.  Things have changed. 

     Now on Sunday mornings I listen to local news on the radio, while the smell of manure wafts in the window, the birds squawk and Penny the Peahen honks.  After a sub-zero March that saw Penny shivering in front of our window her tiny head-feathers whipped about by the wind, spring has erupted like a floral volcano.  


Vines creeping

Bluebell's bursting

     You can practically hear the buds exploding on the apple trees, the pink flowers popping.  Bulgy bees, the size of Volkswagen Beetles, buzz from bloom to bloom.  Grass grows so quickly you’d swear it’s inched up during the course of one hike.  Every day a different flower begs for your attention in the bed beside the driveway.  The trees remind me of the Day of the Triffids;  branches groping at the Pink Cottage like barky tentacles trying to grasp us through the windows.     Vines creep around our pink perimeter. There are so many birds you can barely hear yourself think.  Lambs leap into the air half-crazed by the spring weather.  Sheep graze tearing grass from soil.  
      Back on Main Street I’d read the New York Times Book Review, the Sunday Styles, and looked at things like Bill Cunningham’s photographs of New York street life and fashion. I read the Modern Love columns because I thought I had a couple of them in me somewhere.  I’d wince through articles on politics and economics.  Now I listen to BBC – News Somerset, I say listen because we have opted out of television entirely. 
     I read 'This is Somerset' and the local Parish news.  I am concerned about the weather in Yeovil during the Yeovil Town soccer club’s parade to celebrate their ascension to the Championship. I am fascinated to find out that one in six people walk to work in Bath. I am saddened to learn the Badger cull is still moving forward and there is nothing I can do about it.   
     After absorbing this news avalanche we decide to hike up to the top of Dundon Beacon, a beautiful hill topped by a glade famous for its bluebells (that, like the rest of nature here, are entirely out of control.) It’s been several weeks since we went up there, and in that time spring has launched a full on attack.
Slug sans saddle
     The path is barely recognizable. Queen Anne’s Lace and brambles line the bridle way. Just three weeks ago you could see right through the nearly bare stalks to the fields beyond.  No more. Now the plants tower up the sides of the road, taller than your head. There are slugs on the path so big you could strap a saddle on them.     

     On the other side of a hedge a herd of cows are sent to pasture.  I have to stand on my tiptoes to see them over the privet.  You’d think this was their first graze of the season since they practically gallop out of the gate.  They’re large cows; quite beautiful, but definitely huge.  And they seem to be of one mind.  Every one of them is heading in our direction.  Every gaze is fixed on us.  It’s then that my husband decides to share  a tidbit he’d picked up on BBC news.
 
     “So," he says, "I heard on the radio that this guy in Wiltshire got trampled to death by a herd of cows last week.” 
     “What?”  I look at him, backing away from the bramble barrier separating us from the approaching herd.

     “Don’t worry,” husband says, “They can’t possibly get through that hedge.”
     My husband says things like, ‘this plane will never fall out of the sky’, while you’re strapped into your seat on take-off, like he’s perversely willing calamity.  And while he technically has spoken the truth so far, our recent emergency landing set me thinking.
     The cows continue galloping towards us until their massive bodies press up against the privet.  Their heads crane and stretch and glean over the greenery.  They moo like they’re cursing us.  I back away.  My husband chuckles. 

    “Let’s just go up the hill,” I say, like they’re going to break through the barrier just to spite him.  He looks at me like I’m crazy.

     We head up the path, seven foot tall growth on either side which means no escape; an attack by a herd of cows here would be like running with the bulls in Pamplona.  They watch us leave,  like hunters watching elusive game. It’s a steep climb and we huff and puff in the misty morning air. We reach the crest of the hill, the beautiful glade. The fence is closed.

     “Weird,” husband says, “that fence is never closed.”
     We push on through to the last little part of the ascent.  We look up.  There are three figures silhouetted in the early morning light, like mythical beings. 
     We squint in their direction. Standing in front of us are two cows… and a bull, no... two bulls.  Beyond them is the rest of yet another herd. I think back fondly to the crack heads.
     “Don’t worry,” husband says, “that bull is not going to charge.”