ANCIENT OVERWEIGHT TOAD HITS SEVENTY-EIGHT

Thoughts when in bed this morning whilst Bernadette wrapped my birthday gifts - each gift a romantic treasure: firstly how blessed I am in Bernadette and in my four sons, my daughter, my daughters-in-law and out-of-law, my son-in-law. And how truly blessed I am in my divine grandchildren (of whom Shane is baking a chocolate birthday cake which he will eat as I am home in Herefordshire UK, and he is home in Duchess County NY).
SHANE AND GRANDPA OOPS

Second thought: 78 seems so much much older than 77.
Third thought: 79 will feel old old old. However 80 will feel young again (if I make it), a new beginning. Hopefully I will be completing the final lap of a planned celebratory circumnavigation of the planet - probably on a Honda 125. So here is a Happy Birthday to me, Brmmmm Brmmmm!

MOUNTAIN COW

I have been Time Travelling while sitting on the bench outside the Mountain Cow cafe. The owner comes out to check my health. I photograph him. What are his feelings toward Pine Plains? He prefers the mountains and given a free choice would live in his home State of Colorado. However his wife has deep roots in Pine Plains...

JOHNNYCAKE HOLLOW

HOME: APRIL 8
Take a right after Pine Plains, then a left, swoop into the next valley. The farm road is on the right. The road runs up hill between dark-stained post and rail fences to the homestead. The journey is done. I park outside the office between the stallion pens. Anya pushes open the door from her and Michael's duplex. Anya is small and immensely beautiful. She carries her baby in her arms. I am a real man. I pretend that riding in the cold wind has made me weep.

PINE PLAINS

PINE PLAINS: APRIL 8
Pine Plains is a few blocks each side of a crossroads. Houses are white weather-board in lawned yards, upstairs and downstairs, a few pillars, shaked roofs, sash windows and dormer windows - cute to an American - and to me. The brick restaurant on one corner of the crossroads is French owned. The food is reasonable.
Nothing much happens in Pine Plains (nothing much happens back home in Colwall). They are good sane places in which to sink roots.
I ride in sunshine. My hands are warm. The Honda purrs contentedly as we coast the country road. In my early youth this was a land of small dairy farms. A hundred or so years of toil won fields from hillsides. Dry stone walls protected the fields. Agro-Industry has put the farms out of business. Hill fields have surrendered to second generation birch woods spotted with weekend homes. Valleys are given over to hobby farms and horse farms. White painted post and rail fences enclose horse paddocks, white houses, white painted stable blocks. Even the dirt has been deodorised.
Why so bitter?
Not bitter, sad.
Sad at the waste of labour dedicated to future generations, a cold funeral pyre of dreams for a better life.
Such was New England...sacrifice to avarice.