We scuttle out during a rare break in the incessant rain, coated and booted, and are immediately surprised to see our lane has become a rushing stream that thankfully diverts into the river before it can do any mischief to our house.
We wade up and through, the water brown and rushing, brimming into hedges and slicking over low-lying, marshy sections of nearby fields. We trace the source of the cascade; a new stream now pouring through grass down the side of the hill in Mr Robinson’s tilting field, a grey smudge coursing the green.
A blackbird, flying fast towards us through the narrow highway of the deep cut lane changes course on seeing us and turns tail at speed over the hedge.
At the bottom of White House lane, the river is fording the lane again, magicking up vortexes of swirling water at either side of the bridge. I keep the dogs close for fear of them falling in to the maelstrom. The water harries and frets at my boots and we hurry over. We stop by the gate to look at a new lakeland where water has slewed over the river banks and come to rest in pools, punctured by reeds and reflecting the dusking sky.
Up above the White House, a small and sodden fox trots around the corner. He doesn’t see us at first, so I stop with the dogs and see what he will do. He sniffs, stops, sits (for a second) and with a flick of his brush, dives into the hedgerow and disappears. A wind gets up and rooks lose their footing in the trees above us and are cast into the air in a jigsaw of jet black wings, ‘carking’ loudly as they go.
Below them, the ewes in spongy fields are entranced by the rain, their utter soakedness, fleeces darkened and heavy. They have beautiful faces.
The wind makes me bold and I sing out snatches of Joni Mitchell songs to the watching sheep and lowering light:
“And winter's closing in. And I get the urge for going/When the meadow grass is turning brown/And summertime is falling down.”
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