stop all the dandelion clocks

Spencer and Victoria came by again on the coal boat, though their biggest sales on this run were charcoal and potting compost. Boat people are digging vegetable gardens and potting up tomato plants with the sole purpose of convincing Respectable Walkers that we’re all growing dope. There are plans to have a sunflower growing competition too.

I look across the water to the Horse Field in hopes of seeing deer or foxes, and sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t, but these are on and off things, and it’s harder to note the smaller changes; the cowslips which proliferate across the top of the field and are a yellow constellation from where I sit, though I know they’re now starting to run to seed. The trees are still getting leafed up; the ash came before the oak, but the oak trees have filled out far more over the last fortnight, fresh bright leaves that you can make a surprisingly nice wine with. Who on earth thought of that?

All along the edge of the towpath the dandelion heads are stopped clocks waiting for the wind. The air is stillas anything, and when a jogger or cyclist pass at speed, grunting and panting, a second or two passes and then you feel the wake of them hitting you and you hold your breath for a little while to keep the germs out.

But this morning there’s nobody about but me