Sarah Saves the Day.

Today was another one that started three hours early with a premature wakening and the usual horrors circling my head. The Saturday complex seems to be getting worse, not better.

So, the day being warm and sunny again, I decided to try and shift this near-neurosis with some weeding, trimming and the lifting of this year’s onions. No good; the horrors hung around all day. After tea I felt there was only one option: back to the good old favourite – go for a walk.

As I was setting out, I thought how nice it would be bump into the much vaunted Sarah from Mill Lane, she of the rare inner beauty about whom much has been previously written. She’s the only person within a twenty five mile radius in whose company I'm happy to spend time, and I decided that a person of rare inner beauty just might provide a suitable antidote to the black stuff that was hanging around in the pit of my stomach. I was also very much in the mood for talking to the right person, and there aren't very many of those even beyond a twenty five mile radius. Problem was, I never see Sarah taking a walk these days. I think the last time I bumped into her on her own must have been a least a year ago.

I was less than a mile along Church Lane when who should be walking the other way with her cocker spaniel? I muttered something like ‘I don’t bloody believe it,’ and then her dog came bounding in my direction. We stood leaning on a gate in a field entrance and talked for a long time. She told me her secret, and I told her one of mine. The big one. The bottom line. And the day improved immeasurably.

This year’s crop of onions is a good one, too.