Walnuts, Mr Snuffleupagus, fesanjan and the postman's knees
Abundance: 24 November 2023
I can no longer see the postman’s knees.
The nights may be drawing in, gingko leaves fill the gutters and drains, the mulberry may have given its heart-shaped greenery to the soil, but the postman’s covered knees are the only sign I’m prepared to accept that it’s going to be properly cold.
As a kid - when the idea of having a device in your hand that enabled you to watch a match from the other side of the world as it happened was genuinely as fantastical as time travel seems now - postmen never wore shorts.
Instead, the start of serious cold was signalled by the headmaster speaking of the life threatening dangers of placing frozen fingers on a radiator, everyone writing their name against the night sky with sparklers, and - without discussing it - we all went to the chippy rather than the bakery at lunchtime.
The old man would tap the glass of the barometer in the hallway on his way from his chair to his bed; a tilt of the head, a tiny nod, and on he’d go. Every night. Until the night before what was to become the first cold snap when he would tap the glass of the barometer in the hallway on his way from his chair to his bed, give a tilt of the head, a tiny nod, and utter a small ‘hmm' before going on. I’m not convinced that barometer told him anything - or at least anything he understood - but the middle aged man is little if not the sum of his habits1.
Today, I take the mail from the postman’s hand while remarking on his hidden knees as my other hand reaches for a net of walnuts I left in the porch.