ohb

creme eggs

It's amazing how quickly you forget things. I just read there in 'the land of the snow' aka Mark and Jill's blog that its Lent on Wednesday. I haven't said the word 'Easter' in ages. if I were at home we would be marking the time by it. Such and such a thing is on after/over/before Easter. I suppose to be honest, I'm not marking time at all and just letting it flow past. Its easier than confronting reality and trying to decide what to do.
I saw the wash woman again today. She's not a wash woman in any orthodox sense of the word but I call her that. A few weeks ago I was walking to the bus stop early in the morning. That mist that is not quite mist but more the darkness beginning to fade clung to me and as I strove to defy the ice and remain upright. There is a kids slide near my short cut and they have moved it to the top of a little hill so that you can go down the slide and continue down a strip of ice to the bottom of the hill. For some reason I looked back at it as I walked and to the right of the slide I saw the figure of a woman, wearing only a pair of old grey knickers. She was washing herself, equipped with two buckets of what I hoped was hot water. It was a very surreal experience and in that grey light I wasn't sure if I imagined it or not and was half afraid to look back incase she wasn't really there. I can still see her straggly hair clinging to her body as my frozen breath rose before my eyes. I told Mesha about it one day as we walked past the spot and he didn't really believe me. This morning though, as I walked past the slide I was compelled to look again and there she was. It was a very different sight today though. The first time I saw her I was filled with sadness, I envisaged a homeless person in this, living cold, struggling to maintain her dignity. Today however, she work a brightly coloured bikini and the morning was bright. I could just about perceive steam rising from the buckets. Perhaps she lives in one of the apartments and this is like her daily constitutional to brave the cold in the misguided understanding that it is good for her skin, or maybe I'm becoming an optimist.

posted by orlagh @ 3:30 pm