July

[Sweder]

After lounging around pretty much all day (before hurridly throwing together a Sunday roast as the girls arrived home from their dance comp) I took the hounds out for a late evening stroll. We'd shared (that's Mrs S and I - the hounds don't get the good stuff) a bottle of fine 2005 Napa Valley Cakebread Merlot, a generous gift received from my good friend Mike during last week's west coast trip. Like the very best wine it invigorated me and I needed to get on the move, to let the creative juices flow.

There's an intersection just onto the downs from the corner of our road. The chalky paths converge to lean around the grass-covered mound housing the local water treatment station to run parallel with the raggedy gallops. At the point where the fence has been flattened by disgruntled walkers we ambled onto the practice tracks, the dogs patroling busily, snuffling noses working overtime. All about us drying sheafs of grass lay like discarded locks on a tardy barber's floor. The cropped, striped track lay guarded by walls of thick, tall grass, laden near-white seed-heads bobbing sagely in the cool evening zephyr.

The sun had just departed, gathering up its whispy skirts to play to a new audience across the western hills. You could almost hear the faintest ripple of applause wash back on the breeze. In the glimmer of the footlights shadows gathered on the horizon to watch the show, turning their backs to us as we strolled in the twilight. Around us dark shrubs and thickets sat still, waiting for nightfall. What dirty deeds were about to play out here? What mischief to be made by nefarious foxes in the long shadows of night's dark cloak? Above us the moon, veiled in whisps of dark cloud, resembling a table lamp in a gentleman's club, lazy cigar smoke drifting heavily about its pale luminesence. The odd half-light gave the slate-tiled prison a purple hue. Beneath the roof dark souls tossed and turned in punitive Victorian cells. Dreams of freedom mingled with plans for future villainy escaping between the bars to lay heavy on the night. Distant town lights sparkled in the gathering gloom, the only signs of life in the silent streets beyond.

I stood stock still in the midst of it all, my heart (and stomach) pleasantly full, and offered up a thought. If I could but freeze this moment in time, take it out and live it whenever I should want, I would be the most content of men. Another heady, intoxicating brew from the good Burghers of Lewes.

I witter on about this country, complain bitterly about the inequities of our so-called democracy, the unstoppable ersosion of fundamental, traditional values, the petty tyrannies of our ludicrous leaders, the jackass muledom that is our Media. But when push comes to shove I'll take some shifting from these shores.

On nights like these I truly love my England.