On Walking: Monday 26th May

I am walking through the margins in the fields below the dryer, where the grass reaches my mid-thigh, and soaks my jeans above my wellies. I’m walking very slowly, suddenly noticing that there’s a world around me, and that it’s changed completely from the last time I looked.

I have been finishing a book, and for the last two months or so, have thought of little else. The book has been sent away now, to Judith, my agent, and I feel as if I’m returning from someplace I can’t explain.

Stevie is relieved it’s over, and both children seem to have grown an inch or so.

But it’s the land that has really changed; the earth has warmed up, and you can smell summer on the air. Down in Bra Corner there’s a clump of pink campions, flowering as high as my hip, and nettles, growing even higher. The Sor Brook is low and slow; its depths bronzed in the sunlight. The sheep on the other bank blare at the dogs, and their half-grown lambs stamp impudent feet.

I drift onwards, catching my fingers through the lacy heads of cow parsley. Hogweed grows along this part of the margin, and a single stem has shot past its mates as if to compete with the rape. The flowers are a deeper cream than the froth of cow parsley, and its stems far more sturdy.

Knowing I shouldn’t, but unable to resist, I float up the field to Ellie’s fallen oak. I have to flatten nettles and a few very green thistles  in order to jump up. I’m awkward and land heavily; two months of intense writing have given me a fat bottom. I vow to jog.

Its hot up here; I take off my jumper to sit in my vest. Dora sits by my side; Pants is nowhere to be seen. Twelve inches from my right is a dead fieldmouse, recently decapitated. It’s tucked into a kink in the rough bark of the oak, ignored even by flies.

Last year’s stickybuds still scrawl a net over this year’s hawthorn, and I examine the leaves beside my face. The new stems of the hawthorn are dark pink, the tips of the new leaves are a darker scarlet, like the innards of the poor mouse. A tiny caterpillar clings to one leaf; it is black and white with a scarlet spine (I later find it will be a hawkmoth). We’ve seen so many caterpillars this week; the children and I use dock leaves to scoop them off the tarmac of the lane. I don’t let the children keep them in jars, after childhood horrors of cooking a dozen ladybirds to death in the sun.

I finished writing the book on Friday, almost three days ago. I know I won’t hear any feedback until the third week of June, and that I must absolutely not start messing about with it before then.  But I can’t help that terrible feeling of vertigo that I seem to get after finishing every book; that I must start the next, or I might forget how to do it.

I gaze across the valley to the Scout Woods. I can see the tips of the larches against the sky; dark green and pointed; a mountain range that surely must be much further away. The chimneys of the village are to my right. I can hear children playing, and the engine of a tiny red tractor in the opposite valley. This is the start of the half-term week, and I’ve promised the daughters park-trips and swimming; friends to play, picnics and French cricket.

Pants emerges to lay his head on my lap. His brown, speckled coat is greenish yellow, he has pollen furring his eyelashes and a blade of meadow foxtail caught in his collar. Dora tries to push her head beneath my arm, jealous of the fuss.

I’ve sat here for so long that my bum must be ridged red and white by the bark. I jump down, landing squarely on both feet. ‘Home,’ I tell the dogs. ‘Home.’

It’s early afternoon, the children are still away at a friend’s house. I’ve tried not to – I’ve really tried not to – but in my head I’m already typing: Chapter 1.

Author: mrscarlielee

Mother. Writer. Wearer of frocks with wellies. Loves Dancing, Frivolity and Good Books. Tweet @MrsCarlieLee View all posts by mrscarlielee