I got to sit outside on my balcony last night. It was the first time this year after I finally got to clean it of its winter/spring/summer dust and debris. I can live with my stuff all over the place, but once I start to clean an area, OCD takes over. The top of the railings was wiped down several times before I was satisfied. Then the sliding glass doors got the same attention, starting with the frames before I even considered touching the long glass panels. The tracks with the caked dirt got as much of my time as I could bear to waste. Then the balcony floor, scrubbed and swilled until it looked good enough to walk on barefoot.
For some reason I don’t own a bucket, and with no water upstairs apart from the toilet with its built in hand basin, water had to be carried up the stairs in the washing up bowl that I never use for washing up. Minimal mess on the way up, careful as ever not to snap the small scrubbing broom I got from the 100 yen shop, the *tawashi used on the corners, swilled, scrubbed, swilled again. Spotless as much as it would ever be, and now the only thing it needed was to let it dry .. in the thick humid air of the day.
The plant stand was carried upstairs, and the only surviving geranium from last year started to add a bit of colour with its bold pinky red. The promise of only clouds later in the day was encouraging. I just might be able to sit out and enjoy a glass of wine.
And that I did. The dust was vacuumed off the low canvas deckchairs I got from Nitori a couple of years. The tiny folding table miraculously appeared the umpteenth time I looked for it in the same place I thought I had put in, a few bits put on a plate, wine in the glass. Light on. Chill.
From that long narrow piece of my home above the garden that needs a lot more tlc than the balcony ever gets, the sounds of **korogi filled the heavy air. It was 6:15 pm, and day had been stripped of its daylight. The long summer days of England are well and truly over for me this year, but stretching the last days of summer into the first week of September and hoping for more evenings like this in the weeks ahead before the hell of the winter hits me once again.
PS It started to rain AGAIN at 8 pm and play was stopped for the crickets.
* traditional Japanese scrubbing brush used for cleaning pots and dishes
** crickets
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