Sometimes, after the work is done, if it’s not actually raining, there is nothing we like better than to take to our bikes and go inland to the ford. When there, we always marvel that we need go such a short distance – less than a mile and a half – to be in the heart of the Devon countryside.

On Friday evening we had stood by the ford and watched two tractors – one making the huge round bales of hay, the other wrapping each bale tightly in a continuous length of plastic bandage – and it was fascinating; the bales looked like gigantic mummified eggs dropped on the field. A storm was brewing and the farmers were working against the clock.

We returned to the ford last night, called as we were by the beckoning evening sunshine, to find that the farmers had been successful in their efforts – the field was full of alien-looking eggs. A lone walker, an older lady, was out for her constitutional and she stopped on the tiny bridge over the ford to take in the sight at her leisure; she seemed not to mind that we were already there, perhaps it even increased her pleasure. The lady turned to us and said something. She spoke softly and we couldn’t hear (well I couldn’t hear so I knew that Chris wouldn’t either because he is a tad deaf, as you may know).

“Pardon?” I asked taking a few steps closer.

The lady repeated it but we still couldn’t hear. A second ‘Pardon?’ proved equally as futile. No matter, we understood from the expression on her face, and her gesticulations, that she was enamoured with the evening and also with the fact that she lived not far away – in the houses for the elderly at the end of the Newhay path (if I’m any judge of semaphore-type language, minus the paddles). We stayed nodding, smiling and saying “Yes”, at the right junctures (hopefully) for a period long enough to dispel any embarrassment over either our deafness or her inability to speak audibly. Back on our bikes again, and coasting down the empty road to Aller Arch, I called out to Chris as he came up beside me:

“Did you hear anything that lady said?”

“Not a word!” he exaggerated for the humour.

We cycled home by way the brook, which we had almost to ourselves because of the lateness of the hour; and yet the sun, though lowering in the sky, still shone for us, and for the two lads playing football on the green, and for the dog-walkers, and the woman who smelt of tobacco; and it shone for the pigeons, the geese, and the swans who were camera shy, and had me chasing after them along the brook. Chris noticed a plaque on a bench – on it was printed, “God Bless Mum and Dad” – and Chris thought something was missing (like the names of the dear departed). I don’t agree. What do you think?