December 27th 2018
The muddied yard of a stable. Horses are led in circles. Other horses can be seen looking over half-doors. Cold, misty morning. The echoes of hooves on concrete. At the far end of the yard, a farmhouse – a red door. A man stands at the door, knocking. A woman is at a window on the first floor. She watches him. He is unaware. An owl lands onto the back of one of the horses. I laugh at the whinny and the hoot! The other horses are snorting.
December 29th 2018
Summer. I am making my way across neat lawns and paths. It is a cross between Berlin and Carshalton. Groups of people are sat in circles. They are picnicking in the sunshine. It is busy. I’m on my way to the bar. When I eventually get there I see that Wendy F is the barmaid. She beckons me to the head of the queue and I order a bottle of white wine.
She brings the wine bottle on a tray and I hand her £20. The tray is littered with bits of plastic toys and several interesting plastic model soldiers: a US paratrooper, a German infantryman (with removable head) and a knight. All are unpainted and rendered in 1/8th scale.
“What’s this?” I say. I am amused.
“Well, if you don’t want it, I’ll take it back,” says Wendy F.
“Wait!” I look at the tray again and decide to take the soldiers (the other bits are broken or useless). I put them in my pocket and walk back through the crowded park. I watch and listen to a choir who are practicing on a patio. Their teacher is giving each chorister a different sheet to sing from and the resulting cacophony is fantastic.
When I find the crowd that I was sitting with, they all say at once, “where’s the wine?”
I realise that I have left it at the bar, so I begin a return journey. This time when I reach the practicing choir, I climb into the back of a white Transit van and pull the doors closed behind me. The van starts to move down the hill. It moves as if it is floating on a river; turning round and round. There is no one driving. Eventually, with a bump, the van comes to rest. I climb out of the back and find that I am at the bottom of Old Lyme Road in Charmouth.
A man appears from a driveway. He wears corduroys and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “You can’t park there,” he says.
December 30th 2018
Ross, a dog from my childhood, is still alive – or, rather, has returned from the dead. I seem to accept this impossibility quite quickly and I am happy. He is full of energy and runs around at the edge of the woods. Jim, my brother, says, “Don’t you know, this is the scene where he dies?” {The way he says scene makes me wonder if this is all a dream}.
Ross runs into the woods.
I can see the heads of giraffes above the tree line.
nickreeves 