Tuesday 24 March 2020

My Dearest Boy,

I walked early this morning, purposely over the fields – muddy but still firm with frost, towards the railway line.  I would have taken you on this path today.  I passed no-one.  It’s so quiet.  There are few planes in the sky.

As the air warmed the yellowhammers flitted in and out of the leafless hedges, still singing “a little bit of bread and no cheeeese!” – a refrain that must have been familiar to my (and your) ancestors.  They don’t know.

I found a path I hadn’t travelled before.  Still no-one appeared to be abroad.  There was a log I rested on awhile;  behind it I found a Reynard’s skin , nothing left of the creature but its burnished red coarse coat.  Opposite me the rotting frame of an abandoned car.

The footpath rose steeply through the woods.  On reaching the top…