An ancient wood that stretches along a hillside above the curving road is being coppiced. The woodcutters have masterfully left enough of the big trees for it still to be a wood. Now it encloses the gracious spaces that characterize a gothic cathedral. Within the wood I glimpse huge bounteous stacks of massive beech logs that only machines might lift. Between them, here and there, the machines have piled up mountainous bonfires of cuttings, and red sheets of flame blast up into the canopy whilst the charcoal base glows even in the golden morning light.
On the radio
in the cab, I can hear a writer named Richard Hines talking about the kestrel
he once tamed. Within two miles such a
bird hovers twenty feet above the hedge on my left and then descends slowly in
a dead straight line across my path, narrowly missing the truck, as he closes
on his prey in a narrow space between a hedge and the nearby wood.
I stop at
Reigate for my second break after nine hours at work, and shamble in to a small
High Street supermarket to buy a drink and a sandwich, then find myself
approaching the till in step with an acquaintance, Zoe, the smartest and
funniest woman I know. She is wearing a
lovely high collared grey woollen coat, probably an antique but good as new, pinned with a
diamante brooch in the shape of a fern, or is it a feather ? I’ve already
forgotten. We only chat for a minute,
and as always I am astonished at her perfect face-paint, perfect coiffure, dark
intelligent eyes compelling my full attention, and her unfailing talent for making
me laugh out loud. Hurrah !
