What is love?

What do couples hear when they walk hand in hand?

Does the bird song sound sweeter?

Does the breeze brush away their inhibitions?

Does the sun shine more brightly?

When they are together does time stand still? Have they slapped the snooze button of time just to linger in the moment for a little while longer?

As W.H. Auden asks in his poem "O tell me the truth about love"

Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges ?

Anything in there about becoming stone deaf?

Thought not.

Today has been by comparison with most Saturday afternoons a gorgeous one. Sunshine, lots of it. In Durham it brought out all the hen parties and other assorted drinkers. The river was full of mostly sober day trippers clattering into each other in rowing boats.

And the country tracks and rail paths I cycle round were full of couples hand in hand and becoming stone wall deaf no matter how much i ping my bell and shout "Oi! Cloth ears put her down and get out of my way!" I didn't actually say that of course. Thankfully there is an area of the brain that screens out all these unpleasant thoughts and makes us utter sentences much more in keeping with current etiquette. So the previous comment becomes a more sedate "Excuse me may I pass?"



You can see why I am divorced. I enjoy the company of my android phone more than I enjoy human contact. My phone is always on hand, is not moody and doesn't force it's opinion about vertical blinds on me. as long as it is charged it does what it says on the box. Not that I am saying men are not as infuriating to women just that phone is a more enjoyable experience