ALL THE FEATHERS

Unlike Boris and his cockatoos, the sound of a lawnmower, for me, is starting to sound like the end of the world. The upside, apart from the smell of freshly cut grass, is how you notice the slightest sound once the machine is shut off. It is the end of autumn here, some of the last of the fallen leaves get caught in a slight breeze, emitting dry, crunchy whispers as they hit up against and swirl around the corner of a wall. The lawn is mown again, likely one of the last times before the onset of winter and the sleeping of the grass. Hopefully the last. I keep checking the machine but can't figure out why the catcher isn't working properly, the result being that lines of grass are left behind, that remind Boris, he says, of the lanes in a swimming pool in London that he used to frequent, where most mornings he would swim lap after lap after lap. Looking back now, maybe I visited that pool so often in the hope of meeting some pretty girl that I otherwise never would have had the nerve to approach. But now there was an opportunity, we had swimming in common! Strange how such things can suddenly come back to you. He says he was in France for a while too, and starts to speak in French, to which I reply 'Oui. Ca va?' and he laughs like he's heard one of the funniest things in the world. He taps me repeatedly on the shoulder and then says he's going for a beer, before adding: Mind those birds, my boy. Today could be the day.