dump

At the first visit to the dump I was throwing away an old easel of Julian's. The dump warden (is that what he would be called?) said:

"Aaaah, Picasso!"
"Ah Oui" I agreed.
"Pas Pique-assiette, alors?"

I did not explain that Julian was indeed prone to picking food from the plates of those (everyone) of us who eat slower than he and have saved their treats till last. It was too hot to go into that.

It is now officially a canicule, he informed me as I hit the dashboard impatiently in the hope of jump-starting the air con. Forty degrees in the sun.

A friend emails and says the heat is 'hollering'. Right on, baby, I think as I wipe the drip of sweat from my keyboard. (Could be dangerous. A drop of badois ruined my computer once.)

Later, I am moving around the studio, a film of pondlife clinging to my skin, lifting this and that in slow motion. I feel like a baked beached whale. I fill the car with the original imac on which Julian designed his site, a broken video recorder, ditto radio and scanner, too many empty bottles of sablet and fifty 'Bonne Maman' jam jars filled with end o' day brush gunk. I prepare for the second visit to the dump. When I arrive the melted warden has nothing to say. It is too hot.

When I get back the room I am trying to clear looks exactly the same. Just hotter.

All day I am remembering last dreamy evening which we spent with dear friends: A saffron lasagne of courgette flowers and a midnight skinny dip in their salt lap pool. Life was good then.