Postcard: A Travelling Mother's Guilty Pleasures

Driving our hire car, the biggest monster in the lot.
Eating a frosted donut and calling it breakfast.
Shoving clothes in the dryer, never glancing at the sky.
Leaving crumbs on the floor for the cleaner to deal with.
Gazing out the window, just doing nuthin'.

Postcard: Black Crag, icy wind

UP>> I'm cold where are my gloves what can I eat why do we have to do this it's too muddy dada carry me mama hold my hand slow down my feet hurt isn't there anything else to eat I have a runny nose my hood came off you're too fast my legs are tired sore aching when are we going to be there why can't we go hoooooome???

DOWN>> running laughing leaping flying skipping jumping tumbling falling giggling yelling: There's a dog! It licked my face! There's a waterfall! And another one! A kissing gate! Two ponies! One sniffed my hand! The river! The waterfall! The village! Chocolate!!!

Please can we do it again?

Postcard: English Food

Creamy potatoes freshly dug, so sweet, so sweet. This morning's mackerel look surprised, still shocked at being caught. Onion soup, unctuous, fragrant with beef stock. Apples crisp as frost explode with juice; my chin is sticky. Fat crumbs of cheddar fall from doorstop-thick bread. Clotted cream, heavily crusted, weighs down a scone. Baby chard, lamb's lettuce, watercress clean my palate. Hand cut chips are crisply golden; inside, clouds. Pale ale, bronze ale, winter ale, stout –

I think my jeans have shrunk.

Postcard: Sailors' Eyes

Old men's eyes here run blue. After years of watching wind and waves, they radiate light; they cannot focus on earthly things. They gaze past, through, beyond as we pass by.

Postcard: London Underground

The sign says the next train is WIMBLED. What does it take to wimble a train, I wonder? Will it still run? Are there clowns at Piccadilly Circus? Druids and oaks at St John's Wood? What do they grow at Chalk Farm? Who are the Seven Sisters? The King's Cross - what made him so? Which is the Shepherd's Bush? Who is Bec, and why is she Tooting? Does the Elephant live in the Castle? Can the Angel fly?

Postcard: Kowloon

Dead pigs nestle under an orange woollen blanket. Dried squid spill out of sacks. Chicken's feet are heaped into pyramids, toes pointing to the street. Bunches of lizards, tied at the tail, dangle from the ceiling. Fish swim around a styrofoam box; their fins break the surface of the water. A geoduck extends a siphon as long as my forearm and explores.