The Donkey & The Storm

Dear Baby Violet,

I would like to tell you the tale of how I met your mother one sweltering summer’s afternoon in Suffolk, not so very long ago. There are days, you will learn, when the Gods interfere and it changes the course of everything to come. This would be one of those days.

I woke up in the usual way, to the excitable chatter of the man on the radio. The smell of coffee drew me to the living room. I’d been lodging with my dear friend Bruce, a loveable labrador of a man, in his Norwich pad (that’s Uncle Brucey to you). It was a laid-back and amicable arrangement which allowed me to go off and travel in the winter months. That morning, I found him poised upon the edge of the sofa in his underpants and T-shirt, watching a match I was pretty sure he’d already seen. As much as I loved the man, I did not share his passion for football.

I got into my car and took the long drive to the old market town where you would be born a year later. I had left early. It was market day after all and competition for busking spots could be tough. When I arrived, there was a donkey in my pitch. He was a friendly-looking donkey, which is more than I could say for his scowling, human companion. Clutching a miserable bunch of leafy carrots in one hand and a collection tin for a donkey sanctuary in the other, the thick-set brute smirked at my tardiness. I had crossed paths (and words) with Donkey Man before. He was a foul-mouthed creature with a broad East London accent and a bad attitude. Little did I know, however, the Gods had made their first move. I decided to head elsewhere, to a place I had never been before.

I noticed your mother immediately. She was with your grandmother and your brother, watching me play. After my song, she gave your brother a coin for him to put in my guitar case. I crouched down and smiled at him. I had no idea he would become such a big part of my life. I caught your mother’s eye. She was beautiful. Somehow familiar. She smiled. And then she was gone. It’s funny but I remember a feeling of great sadness. I was thinking how there was some lucky guy out there, somewhere.

As I got ready to leave later that day, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see your mother. She smiled awkwardly and handed me a note wrapped around a sprig of lavender. And then she was gone again.

She was here visiting family, returning to Ireland, where she lived, in just over a week. Strangely though, I was heading to Ireland myself (with my musician friend Felix) the very next day for a week’s tour. It was with cruel irony that I would be returning to England by ferry the very day that she would be flying overhead back to Ireland. 

I did my tour but couldn’t stop thinking about her and annoying Felix with talk of this mysterious woman. But then the Gods played their next move. A freak storm cancelled her flight. It gave us a tiny, fortuitous window in which to meet. 

I walked into the hidden garden of the cafe on that hazy, luminescent morning. I was nervous. But then I saw her, waiting at the back, framed by the arched trellis, sipping tea, in a blue summer dress, and all my feelings of apprehension disappeared.

And the Gods, they did smile.

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