Photo: Karin Mora
The Mathematician and I are on holiday next week(1), which means we’ve seven days to tie up all our current projects. This translates to earlier starts and later finishes, with a little time spent by the window, gazing out like house cats wondering what’s outside.
My desk(2) sensibly faces a wall of white ingrain wallpaper so hideous I’ve no choice but to look at my screen. (Thank you Hugo Erfuhrt, German pharmacist and, apparently, domestic sadist. The UK and Ireland sensibly said, “Nah, mate,” to this chaos-braille decades ago. The Germans, of course, hold on.)
Distractions averted, then. Or are they? Eyes aren’t the only data hoovers attached to my face. As the hours pass faster than progress bars, I tune into the odds and sods of The Outside World. Here’s a list of the mind-latching minutiae.
- There’s a Redstart nesting behind the downpipe near the entrance to our building(3). I hear its cheep and rhythmic chook — its warning — when I open the window. I see it perched on the corner of the building opposite, looking down at a tabby cat. The cat calmly strolls up a nearby garden path. The Redstart follows, flying onto a metal fence and hopping half its length till the moggy’s gone.
- One crow preens another on a nearby roof ridge. Family?
- Down the street, an elderly lady with a crutch rifles through a box of gifted items left on a low wall. She takes nothing, moves the box aside, and sits.
- The Redstart again, flying up from balcony to balcony of the building opposite till it’s perched on the top floor gutter by a window with a cat plushy.
- One night, I look out and see a little lump of shadow move from the pavement to the underside of a small red car. A moment later it pops out onto the road — a hedgehog! — and scurries across. It walks beneath our window, then up our garden path. Adorable! What timing.
- Two deaf men stand outside after supper, speaking heatedly with their hands.
- A man and a girl skip down the street, singing a song together.
- Several streets away, seen between houses, two giant silver birches catch the setting sun. Their bark’s a bright fuse beneath wind-blown leaves. Perched at the top of one, a crow.
- A Eurasian Green Woodpecker, far from the woods, calls out from some place I can’t see. What I can see is the Great Spotted Woodpecker clutching the wall of a building across the street, below the eaves. It hammers at the façade. I wonder what it sounds like inside.
- Heavy cloud sits to the north, but here the ground is golden. For how long?
- One pigeon lands in a tree above where another perches, the branches bending under its weight. I look away, turning back when I hear them both fly off. The leaves where they were are now white and drooping. What did I miss?
- A wasp comes in one window, scouts, and leaves by another. The four flies in the room learn nothing.
- A rescue helicopter crosses east to west. A loud necessity.
- A man crosses the street so slowly he seems to be wading. When he reaches the other side, a woman begins to cross behind him. Together-apart they walk to a door ten metres down and enter, or are swallowed.
And that, as they say, is that. Or those. I’m sure I missed a myriad but needs must.
I’m always surprised how much can be seen on a doorstep.
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(1) Holiday: A predetermined number of freely-assignable days in which you may pursue your ‘work or die’ agenda at a more leisurely pace. Excursions a possibility.
(2) Last week‘s hot topic.
(3) I went outside to buy supplies. We’re allowed to eat, you know.
