An Honorary Swan

Oh no, the back tyre’s flat, drat. It’s such a nice day, the sun’s shining, the smell of autumn is in the air, a perfect day for a cycle ride along by the river making the most of the opportunity before the dismal damp days to come and I have a puncture. Grrr, I flapped my arms in despair and frustration and ……………and my feet leave the ground! I need to see a shrink, I’m having delusions, I’m sure I’m floating, nay flying, that’s my house down there, my garden, my car and that’s……..and……….and ………wow!!

Effortlessly floating around now I can look down on the whole neighbourhood, is that a removal van outside number seventeen, come to think of it I haven’t seen Trevor for some time, have we lost another of the residents who was here when we moved in? Like the others has he quietly gone and no-one has noticed?

The starlings on the aerial fly off squawking alarmed at the sight of a large spectacled featherless creature that’s just a bit too close for comfort but the magpie on the neighbouring roof shouts a warning, he stands firm, he’s not scared.

At the end of the road I fly over the steep bank alongside the railway line, that’s where a glacier came to a stop in the last ice age – or so I’ve been told by one of the allotment gardeners who lectures in geology. (I like to keep good company). Several gardeners are out making the most of the warm dry day to get on with the autumn tidy-up and the autumn planting. There’s my plot, wow, how different it looks from up here! On the whole, mmm, pretty good, certainly much better than when I took it on, but lets face it, it couldn’t have looked much worse! I must get on with my autumn chores but not today, there’s somewhere I have to be that’s as much a passion as my gardening.

The sun is hot on my back but as I glide along the current of air cools me; I close my eyes and fill my lungs with the cool clear air, how wonderful and free this feels, the air glides over me as smooth and as luxurious as the most elegant, the sofest of silk dresses. I can float, glide, swoop and soar, roll over, loop the loop, weeee, look, no strings! This is the most fantastic thing ever.

I dive down out of the way of the air ambulance letting it noisily pass over me on it’s urgent way. Lower down now my heart thudding from the fright I glide along following the course of the river as it winds its way through the trees and thunders over the weir with it’s new improved salmon run. I pause in my journey to watch the salmon attempting to jump this enormous wall of water to fulfil their destiny. What a marvel they are, never giving up. A stately heron stands on a rock on the lookout for an unwary fish, he’s still as the rock he stands on except for his eyes, alert and focused, he doesn’t miss a thing. A fisherman casts his line into the fast-flowing water competing with the heron in his clumsy human way.

Approaching the new footbridge I’m no longer alone, a pair of beautiful white swans have joined me. One either side of me we fly along in perfect unison performing an aerial ballet. This is so much fun, up up up we soar, down we dive, it the right, to the left, glide awhile, I’m an honorary swan. But as we fly over the castle I signal farewell to my regal friends, the end of my journey is in sight and I head for that other feature of our skyline, the Friary Tower block.

We’re back in our old room on the fourth floor, ‘we’re home’ I say to everyone as I enter the room and head for the seat closest to where I always used to sit. Funny, so do the others, we’re more or less sat in the same old places!

‘The exercise today is one we’ve all done before, the journey into class’. Oh no I groan inwardly, I always find this exercise a challenging one. As ever I can’t actually remember my journey in and it won’t matter how long I sit here with my eyes closed. I never notice anything as I’m travelling.

And as if to confirm my lack of observation I fail to notice the pure white feather on the floor beside me.