Electricity by Angus Peter Campbell sampler

electricity
The birds are singing outside. They are always at their best at this
time, first thing in the morning, as if every new dawn is a surprise
to them, needing a song. Goodness, the way Claudia my neighbour
moans, as if it’s a trial being alive. I’m lucky, because I have trees in
my garden, so all the birds gather there, summer and winter. They’ve
grown since you last climbed them! I sleep well enough, though I
wake early. But no matter how early, the goldfinches are always up
before me. The gowdspinks. On spring and summer and autumn
mornings they are in full song by six or seven, but even in winter, because
I put seed out for them, there they are as soon as the sun rises.
Maybe the sun himself rises when he hears their songs?
I’ve had my breakfast. Today, fruit and
yoghurt. And black decaffeinated Earl Grey.
The one with the blue cornflower blossoms
and bergamot you thought was a perfume
the first time you were here! I add orchid
petals. For the antioxidants, I tell myself!
Though it’s really for the colour which
matches that gorgeous Japanese pot you
bought me from the charity shop.
Oh, and did I tell you I bought a stove?
The man installed it a while back, but it
wasn’t working properly. Then he came back
and fixed the flue. Blamed the flue of course, saying it was faulty!
And you know what? The local garage down the road sells those
bags of peat, and once the fire gets going good and proper with
wood and a handful of coal I add the peat so that the fragrance of
my childhood fills the air. Forgive an old woman adding her bit to
global warming, my dear child!
It’s a silver morning here. The sun is shining in through the
kitchen window and the percolator is already bubbling. Wasn’t
it lovely being outside on a clear and starry winter’s night? We
might have been eaten by moths or frogs! Or been invaded by
those starships you said you saw flying between the moon and the
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