Curry Rivel December 6th

It’s cold but clear. The pale face of the moon is up already in the blue sky in the east looking a bit aghast at how early it is for him. It’s quarter to four. The air is cold on my hands and legs.

The owl and the pussycat barn is only a hundred metres from the cottage and opposite the house where my grandparents lived for over fifty years. It is so named because it was built in 1888, the year of Edward Lear’s death. At one end are the owl and the pussycat carved into the wall and at the other the pig who sells them the ring, the ring that allows them to be married, and the date 1888. Above the owl and the pussycat is an iron weathercock with my great grandfather’s initials in wire just under the cockerel who, unless I’m mistaken, always seems to be pointing south into the farmyard of Wiltown Farm.

Up in the field the telegraph poles march haphazardly – some are straight, some are not – towards the Blackdown Hills across two fields and then disappear. Beyond that the horizon is ablaze as the day comes to its end.

A vast murmuration comes from the west – thousands of starlings stretching two hundred metres or more across the sky. They move as one mass like a long cloak making the faintest hushing sound as they fly overhead. It sounds like a short whisper.

Across to the south the stately home of Earnshill sits wedged in between two thick clumps of trees. There are rows of green fields broken by the lines of trees and these rise into the dark wooded tops of the Blackdowns and beyond that only the cloud and pale sky.

Everywhere are lines and curves; curves and lines.

Across the northern side of the top field I can see the football pitch and pale walls of the council houses. One St George’s cross flaps in a garden. Gone are the boys who were passing the ball with a rhythmic thud prior to the England game on Sunday. I expect they’ll be out there again on Saturday before we play France.

It’s dusk at around 4.30 and the moon is now fiercely bright in the blue black of the sky and I think once again of the owl and the pussycat:

‘And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon, they danced by the light of the moon.’