The following is posted as I frantically try to calm down enough to write up all the goings on of the past month! It is the first piece I ever submitted to Writelink.

RHYS

Before the chavvy-lads come, before their horses chew new hay and stamp their welcome to the day, I walk down to the river. On broad branches of old trees, owls - crops stuffed with mice to digest, hootless and sleepless - stand watching me. I am not afraid – we share the view - balsam lined river bends, reeds and marshes, shingly picnic beach, clipped allotment hedges and shining silver birch, detailed against a mile of wind-baffling willows.

July is not like icy January nor cobwebby November. Today already I can feel pale heat, sense the drying dew and hear the daisies opening amongst the close rabbit- cropped grass. Some may like April better - for the daffodils or May - for the hawthorn, but this is my favourite month when all the meadow flowers stand higher than the whitening grass and I imagine maids in cool sculleries wrapping butter in the giant rhubarb leaves on the banks.

Across my view walks Rhys – a man in his culture, just a boy in ours –nodding to me his curt and silent acknowledgement. I listen to his low gruff tender greeting thrown horsewards, hear the rhythmic brushing of its flank and the harness’ soft, dull wind chime jangling accompaniment. I cannot stay. I make the road double time as the snorting trotting mare gains the junction; a tug on the reins and the painted trap turns into line and off they gallop up the hill into town. And I know it’s going to be a beautiful day.

Note:
Ours is a town of many settled and travelling Romani and horses are still a common means of transport for many. Rhys is a boy I was teaching to read and write and who was so knowledgeable about the countryside that he taught me..