The Necklace

haha french now kobo,,, you think it might be french,,,,,,?? i never heard of a tomato speaking french,,,,,besides the g in manger is a soft g ,,,that would not have sounded much like mango,,,

why don't you ask your sister what they say,,,, she has big ears,,,,,,,

your sister is she,,,her beauty spot,,,is she ,,,, is she pretty?? don't be jealous i'm just clikclik asking,,,,

i have a story for you kobo i was at the beach on tuesday it was windy,,,,oh ! windy,, the waves were tumbling in,,,,,,,there were two people standing in the surf ,,,,,they were wide people with wide pink backs,,,,,,only wide people could stand up in it without falling over,,,,,

i crawled up jetty road where all the humans were eating to get out of the wind,,,,,,,,,,,i watched the people eating under umbrellas,,,,,, eating caesar salads and baguettes,,,they had little bits of lettuce poking from the corners of their mouths,,,they stuck their paper napkins in between the table slats to stop them blowing away,,,,,,

it was an old woman's birthday she had a present wrapped up in red paper,,,,,, when she opened it it was a necklace,,,,,a long one,,,,,,,,,, it would go around her neck three times if she put it on,,,, she stared and stared,,,,as if she didn't know what it was,,,,,,her friends stared too and pointed,,,,,,,, oh,,,it's a necklace,,,,

do you like it kobo???

will your sister like it???

what is her name????

please hurry up and tell your good friend,,,,,,,,,,,

ageless

Pulitzer Prize

really ageless?? mmango is the tammmmil word for mmango?

ageless, mmango is the ENGLISH word for mmango! the tammil word is maangai. you don't know tammil.

the old tommatoes are gone, and there are new ones. they all say mmango. i tried to converse with them. i said, mmango? they replied, mmango. i think i amm getting somewhere...it is something to do with eating, as in mmanger which is french.

i did like your story ageless, oh how i liked it. i immagined mmyself floating on an inflatable havaiana in the water a pink one with flowers like the girl had, floating that is my dreamm, being a stone you see i could not float unaided.

have you any mmore of these lovely seaside stories?

i have finished stephen fry i finished him this mmorning and gave himm to mmy sister. yes i have a sister it is not immpossible. did you think it was?

mmy sister lives beside mmme on the window sill she is not really mmy sister she is a stone, a real one. she has been here nearly as long as mme but not as long.

she is the same pale colour as mme she has black stone ears offset eyes and a beauty spot she looks like a crosseyed mmouse or from certain angles a frog. how do i know? i know because we are bosommm friends and she has told mme what she looks like.

she wants to read the stephen fry. now i can get on with reading hummboldt's gift. it is ammerican, do you think you would like it ageless? it won the pulitzer prize.

Your Sister, Kobo?

dear kobo sorry,,,sorry for lying,,,,,

but i know something of latin all the same,,,,,,if the tomatoes are saying mango mango mango i do not think they can be speaking latin,,,,

mango is the latin word for dealer,,,, no,,, i think they are more likely speaking tamil,,,,,in tamil mango is the word for a mango,,,,,

yes i have a story for you kobo it is about another beach another day a very hot day ,,,,,i was at noarlunga i was at the cliff end where the river meets the sea,,,,sitting in the water,,,,

some young humans were sitting in the water in a row,,,,, they were looking at a boy who was standing half way up the cliff on a ledge,,,,,jump they called out jump,,,,, he didn't want to then he did,,,,,,kersplash,,,, easy!!! a wussy boy ,,,,,

there were lots of humans in the river playing ,,,,,some were very white,,,, two were floating on inflatable shoes,,,, the name of the inflatable shoes was havaianas,,,,,, it looked so comfy to be floating on the havaianas,,,, the girl's was pink with flowers and the boy's was like the australian flag,,,,,,,everyone was laughing laughing,,,,,no one minded that the river was much dirtier than the sea,,,,

some big men climbed the cliff and jumped in from a higher ledge,,,, to do better than the boys,,,,some girls were looking,,,,not everyone was looking,,,,

do you like it kobo???

kobo,,,,,,no i do not think i like your stephen fry book,,,,,,i don't like funny things or universities,,,,,i am a lobster,,,,,,hurry up and finish it and give it to your sister,,,,, that reminds me kobo,,,

how is it you have a sister???? you are a fossilised clam,,,,of course there is a logical answer,,, please tell your good friend,,,,,

ageless xx

The Fry Chronicles

dear ageless how immmmpatient you are,

no i was not scared i have been trying to learn the language of tommmmatoes and i think i have discovered sommething this is what it is:

the tommatoes only have one word they say it all the timmme and what they say is manngo mmango mmango mmango, this leads mme to deduce they are speaking latin what do you think ageless?

although i note that you were lying about your knowing of their language.

why did you do that ageless??? we are friends we should not lie.

i like part two of your story of the japanese girls, do you think the answer to the mmmmystery
is that they left the beach to change their clothes , and that you simmply didn't see themmm go?

but it doesn't mmmatter, it is a most delightful and mmysterious story. have you any mmmore?

i want to tell you a story too, would you like mmme to?

only i can't just now because i ammm reading like the clappers sommething that i don't think you would like, it is the fry chronicles it is about stephen fry the mman who wrote it. he wrote it about himself you would be bored. there is no sand in it no stones or pebbles only stories about cammmmbridge university and the footlights club and his commmmedy career i like it myself i ammm into commmedy and the nammme droppings of english life

i bet you aren't, being a lobster

i have to finish it quick because mmy sister wants it,

therefore byebye for now agelesss, but keep on writing to mmme i always have timme for you my dearest agelesss

your dearest kobo x

Pink Flower

On the walk back, clouds filled the sky and the sea turned the colour of molten metal. Or so I imagined. Because all at once the sea looked like a brilliant photograph. A line of white on the horizon, silver gelatin sea, frothy tea shallows and dried apple sand.

But that was not what prompted me to take a photo. Well, yes it was. But that was not what prompted me to take two more.

What prompted that was the last of my coastal flowers. A little girl in a fluorescent pink net skirt. You could tell she loved that skirt. She was jumping in the shallows with her sister, making the skirt bounce up and down. It was something like a tutu. And over it she wore an oversized white top.

You know how these days you aren't supposed to photograph other people's children without permission? Luckily there is a distance beyond which that rule does not apply. The little girl was way down on the beach in the middle distance with her sister, and I was up on the esplanade with my mum.

So I snapped her twice. Once when she was leaning forward calling to the sister, and once when both of them began to run.

In both shots the pink skirt is a tiny bright pink spot in the silvery landscape.