Sunday, April 22

 

 

The weather turned cold overnight and the sky turned from bright blue to dull gray. We woke up late and ate a slow breakfast.

I went for a long walk down to the woods, along the path to the ring road, down to Prisma and along Vartiokyläntie to Alepa. I stopped to buy some milk and then walked home. I listened to the P-Funk All-Stars while I walked, and a lot of it seemed different to how I remembered it. I remembered that memory constructs as well as stores, and recognised that my memories of Hydraulic Pump had reconstructed the sound into something altogether lusher in the years since I last listened to it. I could not decide which I preferred: the album that I listened to, or the album that I had expected to listen to.

I walked through two brief spells of drizzle but the weather had dried out by the time I got home. I turned my attention to our bicycles. I got them out of the shed, where they had spent the winter, and checked the tyres. They had gone slightly soft and so I pumped them all up with the new pump that we bought last summer. This meant that I had to finally work out how to use it. I got it to work without actually understanding how, which may not bode well for the future.

In the late afternoon we went to Prisma and then to Naa’s apartment to see her and the guinea pigs. At her request I took the new-fangled pump and inflated her cycle tyres which had flattened nicely over the winter.

I watch the guinea pigs sitting watching me on a towel on a sofa. They sit completely still and then move suddenly. Toupee 2 watches the camera while Toupee 1 looks away. In a few minutes they will both leap straight up in the air and then shift position before sitting completely still again. Later they will begin making long singing noises.

We will sit watching them and drinking tea, until I go downstairs to check that Naa’s tyres have not gone flat again. They haven’t so we will take our pump and leave.

We will potter around at home for a while and then get ready for the week. The weather forecast will predict a cold week with some rain. I will remember walking around Dublin in a t-shirt in the heat and sun. I will wonder if I should take gloves tomorrow, and decide not to.

After that we will go to bed.