The Mountain

The three of us--me, Nat, and Francis--donned well-worn trousers and sturdy boots for our day ahead. We were going to climb a mountain, said Natalie, and we all followed her lead. Conwy Mountain is a scarp face of a hill and not very tall, but the views from it are lovely. I had no desire to lug my professional camera with me to its top, and Natalie let me borrow her camera phone instead, which made everything much easier.

Natalie took this picture. At the top of the mountain we could almost touch the clouds and we looked down into the sheep pastures and farmsteads and valleys of green forest.  

Together again! We have maintained our friendship over the years through fervent letterwriting and visits, as often as they are possible, and we have together adventured through Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, America (the very strange and foregin lands of deep-south Georgia), Sweden, Scotland, England, and now Wales. You can read her version of the story here. I cannot explain us--how we two old souls, vastly different in personality and outlook, have been pulled apart and pushed together over the years--all I know is that it is wonderful to have someone to share my life with, whatever the circumstance and geographic location.

This is Francis. You might remember him from my Edinburgh visit.

"Their pace has quickened."

We climbed almost all the way to the top, stopping only to tackle each other into the ferns. I had brought peach rings, courtesy of Rebecca Shang, and we ate them slowly, savouring their sweet chewiness as the wind tore at our hair and roared in our ears and the grasses rippled before us on the slopes. We came across an oak tree and climbed it, and swung from the low-hanging branches of a tree along the path, and Francis pointed out foxgloves and dreamed of his future garden and we all cried out at how lovely, how lovely it all was.