idylls of summer

 

Sitting near the lake.

All is still and evening and late gold from the setting sun.

Presently I hear a matronly voice in moderate distress exclaiming: "You go away. Go away now. Go on. Get away."

The voice is high with prim self parodaical outrage.

What on earth.

Is someone being attacked?

I move forward quickly.

My eyes meet an odd scene.

A woman of mature years is berating XT the swan, who is sitting on the lake, not bothering anyone.

The woman begins to edge out onto the dry part of the weir to get closer to him.

All the while she keeps up a commentary directed at XT: "Get lost you. Go away. Go away."

She begins to swing a handbag at his head. The handbag is on a long leather leash.

"Go away. Go on. Get away."

XT moves a little bit away.

He is anxious to stay at this location because he knows Bob and Grace swan sometimes try to sneak onto the lake with their seven babies using an underground stream from the lake across the road which emerges here.

XT rules the middle lake and the third lake and he doesn't allow Bob and Grace and co to linger here.

The woman of mature years is still swinging her handbag, having let the leather strap out to its full extent.

I find the scene most quaint.

I hover a bit and let her see me doing some stage business with the dogs just in case she's tempted to really bean the swan.

Seeing me, she inches back along the weir and departs.

Not for the first time I am struck by the queer infundibularities that gild the majoram of every day existence.