The grass was green but the fields were yellow with rapeseed flowers as we drove from Heathrow Airport down to Devon, which I have called my home for many years now. The sun took its time going down, reminding me that on this side of the world it is nearly summer and everything is to come. In the morning the sun rose early and, ignoring the Arctic wind, Chris put the top down on my new sporty car and we picked up my mum and drove to Teignmouth to see Mary. It was the first of May and the magnolias were out, also the ornamental peach tree blossoms and other blossoms with names I can’t remember because I’m still jet-lagged.
At around the same time that my plane, in readiness to land, had been circling above Heathrow my sister slipped on the wet grass in a hillside orchard and was left with three breaks in the tibia and fibula of her right leg.
Mary held court to her visitors from her bed. We listened with awe as she recounted her misadventure. Mary had been alone when it happened. She had to drag herself for forty-five minutes over rough terrain in order to reach the phone, which was in the car some four hundred metres away near the farmhouse. The goats, her only witnesses (apart from the sheep in the orchard – and everyone knows that sheep aren’t as clever as goats), licked her as she crawled by their pen. Mum cried. I had sympathy pains. Lizzie grimaced. Baby Rosie didn’t quite understand and was a welcome distraction.
This morning I drove Mum in my sporty car but we kept the roof up. The Arctic wind blew stronger than it did yesterday, the sun hid behind the grey clouds and I thought of Australia…
“Green Green Grass Of Home”
and there to meet me is my Mama and Papa.
Down the road I look and there runs Mary hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they’ll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It’s good to touch the green, green, grass of home.
The old house is still standing, tho’ the paint is cracked and dry,
and there’s that old oak tree that I used to play on.Down the lane I walk with my sweet Mary, hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they’ll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.
[spoken:]
Then I awake and look around me, at the four grey walls that surround me
and I realize, yes, I was only dreaming.
For there’s a guard and there’s a sad old padre –
arm in arm we’ll walk at daybreak.
Again I touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they’ll all come to see me in the shade of that old oak tree
as they lay me neath the green, green grass of home.