65. A whiff of adventure (2)

I had gone back to check that mail.

And I had noticed there was an attachment. And understood (too late?) that what I had taken as casual lockdown utterances had indeed stemmed from thoughts and ideas that were set to turn into plans and projects. My husband was not a dreamer type of guy, he had thoughts and these thoughts were there to be turned into facts. Lockdown had probably nothing to do with it. It just gave him more time to look. 

I had opened the mail quickly and the second I had seen the miniature pictures I had felt relieved as they were not of a Harley Davidson type of bike. I was safe from fringed jackets and red bandanas. 

The days went by, they turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months and by then we were back to work for real. The kids and I had stopped the baking of sourdough bread and the preparing of exotic meals. I had stopped dreaming the silly dreams. Or maybe not. Maybe these dreams were still lurking at the back of my mind, keeping me going.

And all the while my husband had kept on thinking about this new hobby of his (and working on it!). 

'Did you see my mail?' That question again. I mumbled some inaudible sounds (teenage kids are excellent tutors at such skills). Obviously my husband spoke teenage too as he got it.

'What do you think? Do you like it?'

Like what? This was getting more complicated than I thought. My teenage skills stopped there. 

'I am sorry but I am in the middle of a mad (perilous) clear-up/clean-up/declutter.' 

I was sitting on the floor contemplating an other speck of dust out of reach. 'Hold on a minute.' I started searching through my mail box so I could open the pictures and take a good look at them.

'Well, yes, very nice.' Nice being, I was aware, a pathetic choice of words in the given context.

'Just nice?' My husband obviously thought my answer was not up to the expected standards. 

'Well, no, it's really cool.' Even a worse choice of words. I tried again.  

'Yes, it does look like the ones you've had before.' I got the right answer this time. I could hear the relief in his voice as his enthusiasm picked up.

'Yes! That's the same one! Except that ...' He was about to give me the details of the engine differences and the type of chassis and stuff like that so I stopped him.

'Can we have a chat about it tonight?' I say, revving up the hoover.

'Yes. Look at the photos. It's quite a good one, this one.' 

'OK. Bye.'

I turned the hoover off again and sat back down on the floor. I opened each picture and took a good look at each of them. And, looking, I felt myself go. I forgot that I was sitting on the floor and that I had tonnes of (boring) stuff to do. I started dreaming of far away places and distant horizons. It was high time we had a second youth indeed, high time to set off on a wild adventure. I just had this clear up to do. I got up, turned the hoover back on. No time to waste. We had a new project on. It was all still a bit vague and certainly lacked specificities but it was a project.