Summer Evening Encounters.

How precious these balmy summer evenings are. You just have to go out for a wander in them, don’t you? The deep orange sun looks so friendly as it reminds you that another day is nearly done and you won’t be here forever. Quite. And talking of things friendly, I had three encounters this evening.

The first was Mr C coming up the lane in his top-of-the-range Lexus roadster. He had the top down, of course, and stopped as he usually does when he passes me in one of his posh cars. He told me that, contrary to popular belief, it’s his car not his wife’s, and then drove off. He it was who stopped in his big SUV one day while I was out clearing drains in a rainstorm, and said ‘If this was snow, we wouldn’t be able to bloody move!’ And then drove off. He’s very talkative is Mr C, and he laughs a lot.

So then I wandered into the grounds of the village hall, purely for the purpose of finding a fence to lean on, since leaning on things is what I like to do at twilight. I was engaged in amicable conversation about sheep by three old ladies who were standing outside the doors. Fortunately, I remembered Basil Fawlty’s immortal words just in time: ‘Don’t mention lavatories. I did, but I think I got away with it.’

Upon reaching the fence, I leant on it. Said fence forms the bottom boundary of Sam and Ange’s bottom field, and that field is currently occupied by Sam and Ange’s sheep (which fact was not entirely coincidental vis-à-vis my conversation with the old ladies.) But the sheep are not the only ones in residence at the moment; Ange’s big bay hunter is also grazing there. And do you know what he did? He saw me from the top of the field and trotted the whole length of it, just to come and say hello. That was the highlight.