Hare Time

I stood in the garden room gazing at the reddening sky when two huge hares pottered up to my fence and began nibbling the field. They don't usually get this near, but it was my third close encounter in 24 hours, as yesterday my path was crossed by two young hares darting uncertainly across the lane in front of the car. Luckily I was going slowly and had plenty of time to let them make up their minds. On the same trip out I spotted a barn owl sitting on the grass verge just looking around. This is the second time this has happened: last year I saw one just along the lane, sitting a few feet from the tarmac. It was there for ages, not injured, not unwell, just looking. It was a remarkable thing, and there was this other one doing the same thing. These are such happy events, meetings with beautiful wild creatures. A friend visiting the village told me she saw a weasel pop its head up out of a storm drain, look all round, and then pop back down again. Normally they move too quickly to really see.

Everywhere the banks and verges are smothered in primroses, but they might change their minds and retreat now the cold weather has returned. It's freezing! Hard to believe that I spent two wonderful days emptying the pond, clearing out all the blanket weed that was choking the plants, then scrubbing the lining and refilling. The wind was cold even then, but the sun was really hot and I ended up in shirt sleeves. I'm sure that when I were a lad the weather warmed up gradually from the beginning of March, got very hot, and then slowly cooled down again from late October to reach its icy nadir in January. Ah, those were the days. You knew where you were in t'olden times.

I found a wonderful book of memoir in the library, Half An Arch by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy. I know his son Jason, an artist who holds exhibitions of local work in the family farm down the road every year. He's frightfully well connected, and belongs to the sort of dissolute/posh family who knew everyone in the Benjamin Britten era, and some of whom behaved outrageously. They are deliciously awful but interesting, and his father Jonathan seems to have been the best of them in every sense. I had a quick look before I went out yesterday and was immediately hooked, making myself late as I forced myself to walk away. The local artists he shows include Mary Newcombe and her daughter Tessa, and good old Maggi Hambling. Jonathan himself draws in scribbles that turn into nice cattle and horses. They still own the big house at Great Glemham, and most of this part of Suffolk. Come the revolution .....

My rush out of the house was to sell programmes for a concert at Snape, a job I love and often volunteer for. I really should have been a shopkeeper. I worked until they all went in to the hall, and then met Sammy who had come to join me for a free supper up in the bar. She had the biggest glass of wine waiting for me with my lasagne, which I shall blame for what happened next. I went back to work during the interval, stuffing some money from the till into my pocket as a float so that I could wander between the punters. I sold a few more programmes, then bagged up the takings, sealed them away and left them with the woman in the shop to put in the safe. When I got home, just in time to make a cup of tea before Happy Valley began, I found the pockets of my coat stuffed with notes and coins. So embarrassing. It was the wine, m'lud.