How Green Is My Valley. Larks!

Ma and Abba are having a grand time up in the mountains. Them and their frund-couples from the last generation, having relievedly [and finally] dispensed with such afflictions as: [1] Us kids, [2] Us kids' weddings/educations/miseries, [3] Each family's private scandals and heartaches, have all come to that beautiful phase of life where, hopefully, it's all done with.
They're having a mad picnic in a place untouched by silly things as electricity, noise, and yes, even the wrong kind of people. There is a grounded goodness in our villages that one can only hope never dies. Ma's giggling over the phone yesterday telling me about it warmed me to the cockles of my heat, whatever that means. She was telling me about all those things I remember from my holidays there: misty days, cold breeze, hurts-your-eyes-green hills, sweet water springs, wooden cottages, bonfires, buffaloes, sheep and.... the inevitable- shish kebabs and barbecues! [Mooahaha. Sorry, Giggly.]
We are lucky to have that beautiful village on top of that remote mountain. Where Abba spends a lot of the year being a Son of the Soil. He revels in it. It has taken years off his considerable years. By the time I'm as old as him, I'll probably need an voice-driven wheelchair and 12 helpers. (I shall make sure they are good-looking and well-toned just for the heck of it.) But there be's my pater, swinging a scythe with the best of them. Turning over leaves in the apple orchards looking for tell-tale signs of things only he knows. Watching the movement of bees to predict whether we'll have honey this year. Sitting outside the village mosque after the evening prayers with friends, telling tales. [Some tall tales, granted, but...] He's happy and I'm happier for him.
As for Ma, if anyone ever deserved a break from life, she did. She's taken our family through it all. She is the mother from The Grapes of Wrath. I think a million times to myself, "How much more can she take?" And then I promptly go and add my own little two-bit to her world of troubles. There's a beautiful, she is. What I mean to say is, I hope we're done tormenting her for the anon. That laugh of hers yesterday- it was gorgeous.

Here's to you, my Parentals. Enjaii like anything.