Travels with Molly. Pull up A Chair.....

So I went to England. I'm very allergic to it, but I'm afraid if I get started I just might end up gushing. The other danger is that, in trying to convert the teeming impressions in my head to something articulate, the motor in my brain will burn out! Don't say you weren't warned! So, what would you like to hear? Tower of London? Westminster Abbey? Madame Tussauds? The Tate Museum? Cathedrals? Shakespeare? Tea with the queen? Oops. Sorry. You'll have to go somewhere else!

While I was muddling through the mysteries of English change at Gatwick, having landed fifteen minutes early, and cursing the phone company back home because, in spite of their assurances, I couldn't make my cell phone work, a handsome fellow in a rasta hat found me, hugged me, and whisked me westwards, and back in time, it almost seemed, to meet his Beloved and their Precious Bundle.



I fell in love with her myself. The boy has exquisite taste! I marveled at the Precious Bundle and the fact, at which I have marveled many times before, that such magic is possible in this sometimes gloomy old world. The sweet, pure innocence of a little babe restores hope. Does the world start anew with each new birth?



I rocked him, danced with him, jiggled him, and bounced him. I sang to him and talked silly nonsense to him, and he looked back at me with wide, attentive eyes as though giving it all very serious consideration. Babies make me foolish, maybe because they look so wise?





The soundtrack to my time there was birdsong, bleating lambs, and the wondering murmurs of a new babe. Oh, and reggae, which he has already made it clear, is his favourite kind of lullaby!

If I had to describe my trip in colour, I'd choose spring green, with yellow for daffodils and blazing gorse bushes, and blue for blue skies and woods full of bluebells, and white for hedgerows snowy with blossoming hawthorn.



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The Precious Bundle is truly a citizen of the world. One grandfather is from South Africa, the other is from the Ukraine; one grandmother is from England, the other from Ireland. What will he say when asked where he's from? I think he will say he's from a place called "Love." He has certainly been exposed to a lot of it in his short time here. The first weekend was a baptism of fire, for me and the PB too. We met crowds of the little fellow's maternal relatives at a "working weekend" at a cottage in Wales. I was smitten with Wales and the southwest of England. Which doesn't make me a traitor to my first love, surely? There's room in my heart for both! I'm pretty sure the PB was passed around, and hugged and cooed at by everyone there. Even one teenager, R, known for not being much into babies, was caught sneaking a snuggle! They didn't hug and coo at me quite as much, but everyone was really friendly and welcoming!

The weekend is an annual event, where the Beloved's clan gathers to ready the cottage for summer, optimistically trusting that there will be a summer!




Not a given in recent years by all accounts...... Everyone comes ready to work. Walls are built, firewood is chopped, ponds are expanded, flowers are planted, rocks are hauled, gravel is spread, birthdays are celebrated, hills are climbed, photos



are taken, connections are re-established, ashes of loved ones are scattered, stories are told, gallons of tea are swallowed, mountains of delicious food are prepared and relished, campfires are built, songs are sung---it was truly amazing! The oldest relative there was a spry and lovely lady of ninety two. The Precious Bundle was the youngest, and in between there were teens and twenties, moms and dads, grannies and granddads.




And everyone got along. And everyone worked together. And everyone had fun. And no punches were thrown. And so much was accomplished and such lovely memories made. There is room for Pollyanna in the world after all.

I'll leave it at that until another day.........