A Portrait of a Garden at Breakfast Time

I like bagels. Strangely, I eat them only rarely in England. My bagel with cream cheese was accompanied by my daily hard-boiled egg and chopped strawberries. The ensemble rested on a glass topped table and the table stood beneath a sky of extraordinary blue. Colour and light were enticing. If it was possible to imagine a place as beautiful (perhaps Phuket and its views of the Andaman Sea) it was impossible to imagine one more so. Some of the flowers viewed against that sky look simply stunning. In this desert idyll the brown sludge of Los Angeles' air rarely makes it past San Bernardino. It was not yet 8am and much of the resort was still in shade but there was no chill, not even a hint. The hardest thing today would be moving the laundry from washer to dryer - after that I had an 'empty diary'. Later I would look for lizards. I ate slowly by my standards digesting both food and surroundings. At the risk of stereotyping, gay men at leisure are not known for getting up early. Here they fill the garden as the sun rises, enjoy their breakfasts too and think their own thoughts even if some of those thoughts are more Blackberry than strawberry for those who bring work with them. Jon and Sandy are here, John and Jean-Guy no longer but perhaps little has changed.