sunfeather

So my week away in Exeter was kind of fun. There was a lot of physical activity: swimming and stationary cycling at Rachel's local gym, frisbee on the beach, miniature golf (I scored a spectacular 75 over par), korfball practice (which gives me blisters the size of coasters), plus also, on the TV, the world athletics championships from Helsinki with the ravishing Swedes Carolina Kluft and Kajsa Bergqvist.

There's also a trip to the Living Coasts wildlife centre in Torquay with its free-range penguins, sundry sea birds and South American fur seals, plus an excellent sound art installation of underwater-type noises. Amongst the holidaying families, my SG radar picks out a morose-looking ageing rocker with tattoos on his hands, and a woman with red hair, moon-and-stars purple DMs and mandala tattoos accompanying her 66-year old over-friendly mother (it's her birthday), who apparently has a membership, comes practically every day and has adopted a penguin, and her (let's say) six year old daughter in a pink fairy dress. They're a cute family, and I'd kind of like to take them all home with me, although the numerous cutting scars up and down the mother's arms bespeak a long history of pain and self-hatred (though actually this only makes me want to take them home all the more...)

**************************************************