red tinged.

Today, I sat in a bus packed to the gills and watched the pale morning faces of commuters as they gratefully clambered aboard a bus to stand closer than you would normally stand to strangers. Some surrendered seats, some did not. Two boys opposite me sat in deep meditation, eyes closed and ipods on. A woman beside me dabbed an exquisitely perfumed oil to her nose.

Many speak of public transport but few partake thereof. It requires time, patience, sometimes poverty and it always demands respect. The upclose and personal use of public transport involves respect.

There is currently a 'crise' with Hydra's public transport. The largest and greediest bus company in town, my friend Mr Stone calls "the Rupert Murdock of Wheels" has decided to close the gates on the drivers of their buses, leaving the minnows to pick up the slack. They do not care to pay their drivers a living wage and have thuggishly taken a baseball bat to the process of wage bargaining and negotiation.

What can I say, time moves on. It's Spring on steroids and Serpent Range which runs to the back of Hydra protecting the fruitful plane of subdivisions to the West is a heavenly blue. It floats into a haze of possibilities.

Again desire is the issue underlying the whole shooting box.

The Arse End of August/the beginning of Spring

At this time in Hydra the wind starts up, blowing off the ocean and into your brain, stirring up the residue of lust and desire that has been kicking back under the duvets and hibernal carbo loading.

What is it you want and what is it you need? Suddenly these twitchy imponderables press.

Magnolia trees bloom a sullen purple above the tangle of damp gardens, while in the background the sky runs through the spectrum of neutral grays.

In the deep of night a neighbour, recipient of tough love is locked out and batters the french doors as ineffectually as a moth drunk on moonbeams. It's cold out there.