luminescence

Morning tossing and turning in bed.
My mobile phone keeps buzzing.
I glance at it.
Ten missed calls show on the screen. I check the numbers. All from Naples. Little Bianca does not accept being ignored.
I roll over and groan.
If I ring her now, I'll have to explain why I didn't answer before.
You can understand my dilemma.
At least you can if you know any Neapolitans who don't happen to be ice creams.
It is afternoon before the mighty Heelers leaves his lair.
Quick jaunt to Newbridge with the Mammy for coffee.
Then on to Dublin.
The city alive with this year's girls.
Trying on their feminity for size. The theatre of life. There is an odd glory to it.
Back home to meet Doctor Jill Allaway and her husband Duggie. Doctor Allaway is a guest at this year's Hopkins poetry festival. Over dinner at The King's Garden in the town of Athy, she poses an interesting question.
"How are you and Miho getting on this year?"
Miho is a charming Japanese professor, also a guest at Hopkins, with whom my name has been romantically linked.
I look at Jill forlornly.
"We're not getting on at all," I say. "She's absolutely inscrutable."
The English doctor asks me what I mean.
"Well," sez I, "I've been trying to scrute her for two years and I'm getting nowhere."
Ah yes.
That old gag.
Stick with me gentle friends of the internet.
Someday we shall laugh again.