It started this morning (no I'm not stating the obvious) while driving past the beach opposite my home. A crowd had gathered, I knew why but was still a bit surprised. Paying little more thought to it I grinned to myself and carried on.
Friday and Saturday's are my favourite days. It's something to do with people beginning to unwind and relax - it's infectious. And I trawl through my favourite shops (we call them 'Harrods') to see what someone may have recycled. Virtually my entire wardrobe this year has come about through recycling - the trouble is, it's addictive and so now I find myself recycling stuff that was already recycled, without wearing any of it. My Mum tells me to see it as a donation.
After a full day of successful trawling (is it through living by the sea?) - the car was ditched a lot earlier - I'm heading home and there in the distance is still the crowd. They are opposite the parish church, is that a clue? What are they doing there, looking at, searching for? Have they found a weeping virgin? Or a new messiah swinging from the bottom of a chinese lantern? Except, apart from the occasional glance at the church they are mostly looking out to sea - or is it at the beach? Have they spotted ET?
Why and for what are they keeping vigil?
Later I take a walk to see my brother, there outside a new crowd, it's becoming odder, these people are wearing garlands of the sort they did in Hawaii Five-0.
On my way home again people are still there, milling about or sitting and gazing in what looks like awe at the wall of the steps that lead up to the promenade from the beach. Have I stumbled upon a brand new pilgrimage?
Neil Diamond's fans used to throw their pants at him. Have I a new fan? For there, on my balcony, are a pair of men's pants, yuk. How did they get there? Seagulls do not wear them. It can't have been the wind this time. It can't either have been the builder from upstairs (do builder's wear pants beneath the trousers that sit at least 6 inches below their waist when they bend down?), although he does often fling the last of his loaf from his window at the end of a days work. He should have grown up with my Mum - she often told us to 'use your loaf' (as in 'loaf of bread' = 'head', Mum being a cockney) - he couldn't fling it if he was trying to use it. The stupid man doesn't even break it up for the birds - why fling half a loaf intact - even the seagulls aren't that big.
I'm glad I wasn't sitting looking at the crowd when these pants flew, there's some recycling that I just don't do.
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