Sunday, March 09, 2008

laughter, thrills, winking

I step out on to the front doorstep to see if anything is going on. A magpie laughs raucously. I always wanted to be a stand-up comedian and it seems that I have succeeded without saying a word. The noise that magpies make is perfectly represented by the French word jacassser, which means the noise that magpies make, and gives rise, I suppose it's this way round, to the alternative French word for magpie, jacasse, the more usual one being pie. Jacasser also means to chatter.

In the Grove, it is just beginning to rain. Two small children on a single skateboard, precariously sitting, one in front of the other, hurtle down a sloping path. They scream with a mixture of delight and fear. One holds upright an open, pink umbrella.

A battered turquoise car of the sort, which boasts headlamp-covers is parked in Mount Sion. The mechanism, which raises the covers automatically is working only for one lamp. The other one is raised like a pronounced eyelid. The overall effect is a car winking.

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