And like the fruitful reaping of the harvest, a time to reflect back and reap the rewards to days gone by with fondness. Times of summer haze and idle days.
During my teens I had a Jack Russell called 'Pickles'. I spent much of my time wandering, exploring all that was to see, and have adventures together. Sometimes I would get us up to mischief and sometimes Pickles could sniff out his own. Whether it was poaching, scrumping, trespassing or hunting we were inseparable.
One such fond memory surrounds golden fields of corn.
I remember resting on a stile whilst Pickles flushed pheasants from a wood next to a vast field of golden corn. I had the idea of carefully making my way along the tramlines left by the farmers tractor to the very center of the field and hiding from the dog.
I reached the spot and lay down on my back out of sight. I remember the warmth, the clear blue sky framed in gold by the corn and I listened.
The whisper of the corn in the gentle breeze, a skylark twittering high in a thermal. I could pick out sounds for miles and pictured images in my minds eye. A distant shotgun emptying both barrels and a tractor carting trailers of corn on the distant downs. The occasional surprise and misplaced call of monkeys, peacocks or parrots at a wildlife park a couple of miles from where I lay. The occasional rustle of corn further down the field, no doubt a familiar canine the cause whilst he scurried after scents. A hammering of nails coming from the village, somebody obviously fixing a fence or a roof whilst the sun shone. A medley of swallows chitting as they swooped low gathering insects on the wing. A blackbirds alarm alerting all of a crouching cat in a garden. Rooks cawing their displeasure at being disturbed high in the trees. The rhythm rocking of a distant train passing through the valley. Occasionally an passenger plane would leave vapour trails on my otherwise plain azure canvass framed in gold.
A whistle, followed by bristling of ears of corn as Pickles came brushing through the field in search of me, stopping momentarily for my further whistles to pinpoint my location. His over excitement and pleasure marked by slobbering all over my face and signalling his calling of time to my sound imaging and inertia.
The corn stalks sticking in your back, the bugs crawling down your shirt, the approaching combine threatening to tear you to shreds, ahhhh memories :-)
ReplyDeleteNice piece lover.
It is lovely too just sit down somewhere quiet and listen too what is around you............. sometimes you are pleasantly surprised.
ReplyDeleteNice stuff mate