MARMALADE TIME

SPOKE

WRIT

Time is fluid.
Time is of no fixed abode.
Time weaves in and out of our lives.
Time snitches on us all.

Drummond attempts to hold time to account...
And always fails.

Between a nod from that first Snowdrop in January to when that last leaf begins its fall from the Oak Tree in December...

Drummond takes note of the passing in his notebook...

The Rooks rebuilding their nests in February...
The stark beauty of the Blackthorn Blossom in March...
The haze of Bluebells in the woods of April...
The return of the screaming and tearing Swifts in May...
The silence of Summer...
The branches hanging heavy with Damsons in the Great Lane come September...
The turning of the tide in the Wigtown Bay.
And...
The gathering of the Swallows on the telegraph wires of youth.

All of it between that first nod and that final fall.

But...

No hard and fast.
No summer solstice.
No bells at midnight.

But there is always the Marmalade.
Drummond’s attempt to hold time to account.
Come the early days after that nod from the Snowdrop.
Between the Death of his Father and the Birth of his Mother...
While passing the greengrocers he sees that box of Oranges...
Freshly arrived from Seville.
And within the next four days the empty Forty Jars are replenished.
And they are placed on the wall hanging case.
The case he made to nail time.
Five rows of Eight.
Will this year’s supply be better or worse than last year?
And every morning he brews the tea.
And spreads the toast.
And his attempt at holding the year back begins.
And as the weeks climb over the months and the months scramble through the seasons...
The empty jars replace the full jars.
Will the supply make it until the next box of Oranges arrive from Seville?
And the Forty Jars can be replenished one more time.

For Brother Hook it might be the ticking of the clock in the belly of his Crocodile.
But for Drummond it is those Forty Jars of Marmalade that he nods to every morning before even the cat has been fed.