Sigh

"Leaving San Francisco is like saying goodbye to an old sweetheart. You want to linger as long as possible."

- Walter Cronkite

once again I'm faced with leaving this beloved place, though I only landed here yesterday lunchtime and feel that I've hardly arrived

cherry blossoms abound

dogwoods

and roses. 

Though it is peony season I've only found them at second hand

I've roamed my traditional 490 acre territory (I'll explain that when I'm not typing with on finger on the batfone) 

Reading telegraph pole poetry with my fingers

it's written in Braille after all

Checked that things are as they should be

The tailors dummy is still in the window on Columbus 

the only addition at some point in the last 38 years has been this 

a British style guide dated 1987

A favourite tree doing very nicely thank you

and in Sterling park on Russian Hill, the heart I left there last year

still in place on the tree

The gorgeous gardens on the Filbert steps are still buzzing with bumblebees

Up on T hill

the store that I daydream about occupying as a studio for a while

is changing hands yet again. It has fabulous views of the Bay and Coit tower and across to Russian Hill

I pick up some saxophone reeds at Union Music

and some carving tools at the Japanese hardware store

and then follow my nose into Susan Vanasco-Howell's tiny but luscious bead store at 1900A Fillmore, emerging twenty minutes later with a string of blue beads, a red rose (given to me by said Susan) and the discovery that Susan and I have birthdays on consecutive days and agree on a lot of things

and that was only the tip of the iceberg of what I did in San Francisco.

I even bumped into my auntie. Well, not her physical self as we lost her two years ago, but evidence that she is around. I was thinking about her and how she loved this city too and then I glanced at my feet and saw this sign

it was her stock response whenever any one of us told her we loved her (our standard sign off on the telephone).

There she was. Large as life. 

now it's pumpkin time and I have to be at the airport early tomorrow 

so I shall consign myself to bed and the lullaby of the foghorns

leaving y'all in the hands of one of the local saints

See...there is truly a saint for every occasion. And I'm gonna be missing Saint Frank.