May 23, 2021

My dearest,

Sunday mornings are lazy mornings. For sleeping in and lazing. Why wake up early? There is no work, no errands to run. No chores to complete. (Or there are, but again: it’s a lazy Sunday.)

Yet I wake up early anyway. The sound of something crashing down in the garden. That didn’t wake me but it kept me from slipping back into dreamland.

And a good thing too, for this meant I got out of bed and stayed on schedule: my morning walk in our garden. Looking for flowers to photograph for you.

The most prized is of course our white hibiscus with its scarlet heart. I did some research; did you know that they are called “White Wings” and probably a Fijian cultivar. Miles away and years and years ago – somehow they found their way from their home island to our peninsula.

And now in our garden.

The crashing sound was from a couple of plantain squirrels having breakfast, pulling off nuggets of palm fruit like Christmas nuts and peeling the tough outer skin off like an automated wood chipper. You marvelled at that when I sent you a clip of it.

The squirrels and the hibiscus. The palm fruit and the snow white petals and the scarlet hearts. White wings to bring you back to me soon, safe and sound, back to our garden, so we may wander along its winding paths again, you taking better photographs than me so I may better spend my time marvelling at you instead.

Yours, ever and always.