~
~
I wasn’t keen at first in truth I felt a little
press-ganged into it,
it was to be titled ‘Senors on Tour’
the three amigos father and sons
a boys’ birthday treat,
the first hurdle to negotiate
the collecting pens at the Gatwick farm where
both exotic and rare breeds collide in their herded and
hurriedly confused malaise,
we took the silver tube to Bordeaux in clear skies
then drove on swiftly down to San Sebastián,
with a tad of imagination it might have been Havana
colonnades and balustrades adorning the Spanish old
colonial architecture,
San Sebastián, is a gem, an unpolished rare
gastronomic diamond,
wide promenades and stately boulevards
cut by narrow alleys,
each one a hubbub of avid grazing diners,
disciples, come to taste pintxos, small pinches of
delicious food eaten al-fresco
outside the numerous crowded manic bars,
each bite religious,
in truth this journey wasn’t
the discovery of enticing food
it was about finding out about
my sons, and the fine men they have now become,
asking without needing to ask if
we as parents had done a decent job,
watching them together, comfortable,
siblings and friends, confidently leading the way
teaching their father as one would a child
roles reversed, me now the student, as it once was
with my own ageing father,
we talked, we laughed, we ate
and drank the local wines, three men,
the baton safely passed
*
© Graham Sherwood 10/24
grahamrichardsherwood.co.uk 