Francesca at the Poppy Seed

We wake at seven thirty, it is Poppy Seed day today, Felicity phoned last night to apologise and to say she was determined to be more positive, I told her no apology was necessary for being old, frail and worrIed about the future. After breakfast, I bathe Normy's eyes, which are responding to the treatment and clearing up nicely. We leave the house at ten to cycle into town, but my front tyre is flat, so we drive instead, remembering to park on the Swinemoor estate and walking across the railway crossing into town. The fine weather has broken and it is cooler and windier today, but not unpleasant. We walk through Saturday Market, where the crowds of shoppers are starting to gather and arrive at the Poppy Seed first by half past ten. A young woman is sat at our usual window seat and smiles broadly at me as she says hello, I tell her that I have to confess that I can't place her and she tells me, with an Italian accented perfect English, that her name is Francesca and that she recognised me from the running club. Norman and I join her at the window table and I warn her that we are likely to be joined by lots of people, but she doesn't mind. I recall seeing her now in the local paper, under the coverage of Beverley Athletics Club, she is a serious runner and also, as it turns out, a post doc researcher in pharmacology at the University of Hull and hails originally from Florence. Her full English breakfast arrives, which she tucks into enthusiastically, no weight concerns for someone who runs the weekly mileage she does. She tells me she is moving to a new post at John Moore"s University in Liverpool, to take up a lecturing post on Monday and is cleaning her house out, before she goes. Felicity arrives and I introduce Francesca, and then Hanne, Barbara, Jill  and Rosemary. Of course all the women are keenly interested in this slim, attractive and much younger Italian friend of mine, but she stills their suspicions when she talks about her partner, Darren, who,is one of the top runners at the club. Annie arrives with her daughter Pippa, and we have to consolidate two tables, in order to fit everyone in. The older ladies adopt the younger one and soon she is deep in conversation, like an old Poppy Seed regular. She promises to come back and see us all, as she will be returning to Beverley for some weekends. By a quarter to twelve Felicity is tiring and I walk her back to Albert Terrace, she has made the journey with her tri-walker and we stop for rests, sitting on walls, on the way back. After seeing her safely home and trimming her climbing roses, that were blocking the garden path, Norman and I venture into town. Walking through Toll Gavel and just before Butcher Row, in the little square, there are a tenor and a baritone singing popular classics and selling CD's. They are singing "Bring Him Home", from Les Miserables, as I approach, and the hairs on my arms prickle with goosebumps from the emotion in the voices. They follow this with the usual "Nessun Dorma", but it doesn't have the same effect. Norman is much more interested in the fish and chips from Sullivan's that a couple are eating, sat on a bench and I have to drag him away. We make our way to Wednesday Market, browsing the stalls there and then retrace our steps, stopping to buy, Ukrainian rye bread and vegetables on the market, including aubergine and fresh English broad beans. We make our way back to the car and when we return home to Tickton, I make steak and onions, with new potatoes, carrots and broad beans for a late lunch. The sun reappears for a while, so we have lunch in the garden. Later, I hang "The Tree of The World", in the Kitchen and the Japanese Ladies in the Hall, determined to make a start on making the bungalow more like home. In the evening I read more of Patrick Gale.