After the spring sunshine

WE ARE sitting in the Geriatrics’ Corner of the Pub, gazing out at the slashing rain rather pensively.

After such a splendid April, it’s as if we’ve been plunged back into the miseries of winter; we even have to put the fire on in the lounge this evening.

Thing is, it’s a bit of a nuisance, this weather, because with the cold winds howling around us, we’re unable to open any of our windows to let out the smell of paint.

The result is, I quickly start to get a headache – bad enough indeed for me to reach for the Paracetamol tablets.

Still, back to the Pub. We’re chatting to a couple of friends, Paul and Judy, who have just taken one of their sons to the airport – he’s off, first to Thailand for a few weeks, then on to Sydney where he’s hoping to get work for at least six months.

“He looked so young, going off with the rucksack on his back,” says Judy, rather tearfully. “He looked more like a schoolboy than a twenty-four year old man.”

And I can’t exactly offer her a word of comfort by saying he’s not gone the other side of the world…

We contemplate the inevitability of growing older. PD is there, too, at the moment trying to sort out the barbeque for his youngest grand-son’s christening.

I remark on the fact that recently I looked in the mirror and saw my father! I couldn’t believe how like him I’m growing, at least in appearance.

And just for a moment, there seems to be a shared moment of awareness – a whole generation of people having to face up to the prospect of their own mortality.

We gaze out at the rain silently, each of us wrapped up in our own thoughts, yet all of us, I think, somehow gripped by the same general sentiment: that we’re all getting on a bit.

Yes, after the promise of that spring sunshine, the rain and wind do seem all the wetter and colder.