Mountains and Ice Cream

I have been blessed or cursed with a memory for minutiae... Revisiting North Wales a few years ago this came back to me.

In 1969

a car pulls away from the station

at the foot of Mount

Snowdon.

A boy’s nose

breathes

mist onto the glass

as the father drives

away to find

“ice-cream instead”

In 1969,

a family ticket to the peak costs

£12.00

In 2006,

family ice cream instead costs

£12.00.

In 2006,

the boy is 46 –

he can’t remember the ice-cream

but he can still taste

the disappointment.