The Balcony

I'm on my way back to the mainland - Shanghai and then Beijing, today. Anna made a huge breakfast before I left - blueberry pancakes, sausages, bacon, coffee (from Colombia) and various other odds and ends. After we ate, we called Sky and had a nice long conversation.

I'll miss everyone while I'm in China, of course, but I'll also miss the balcony, to which I've become very attached, particularly these days when the temperature is mild. I smoke cigars there - some expensive, some cheap - and drink whiskey sours and read or work on the computer or just sit and watch the people in the windows across the way.

The Norfolk Island Pine crowding the balcony is full of birds and I know all of their names now, and know the names of some that I can hear but never see - the koel, for example, with its haunting morning call. Someday, I hope, one will visit the tree.

I recently hung a narrow string hammock that True and I bought in Cambodia. It is stretched between the railings across one corner and is just big enough for me to lay on, though it has dumped me scornfully a couple of times when I made a false move.

There is a collection of potted plants on the balcony, mostly stringy and barely alive. They get watered but that's all. Still, I like them. The one above is a poinsettia that I bought for Christmas two years ago. It is a survivor, and recently pushed out some red leaves at the top of its scraggly stem.

And one of our poor bougainvilleas, which are almost leafless a lot of the time, eked out a cluster of brilliant flowers in the past week. Bravo!, I thought. I look forward to coming home.