Running for the Hills by Horatio Clare

Author:Horatio Clare
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Thursday August 31st. A week of sun—mists in the mornings but bright later. Lesley and Noel worked like mad on the roof. Tiles still off. Polythene cover at night—plaster and wood dust in the bedrooms and in the beds if I am slow to make them. Still no water—dust and dirt horribly depressing. Children need a bath. As do I. Today dull and actually quite cold. Drizzle and low cloud. Jack and I gathered Hill Fields and weaned their lambs. Annie knew she was losing Ella. For the first time I watched her come and bleat for her lamb at the gate dividing them, and then she looked at me with anxious reproach. And another thing. Passing the Patch I said, “That lamb looks miserable—perhaps it needs a drench.” But I’m sure now that it was grieving for its mother (the young ewe with Gid) who has been dying at the bottom of the Patch and whom at LAST Jack consented to kill. Lesley and Noel to London leaving plastic flapping. Hope we don’t get a strong wind…. The swallows haven’t left quite yet! Saw them flying into the stable this evening.

Not quite the end of the summer of earwigs and clouds.

Friday September 1st. Drenched our beautiful yearlings. Had planned to do it in the morning but Mervyn delayed and in the event the afternoon was better. Sunny and warm—jerseys off. Sheep very hot when they arrived at the dip. Waited a good half hour. They gasped as they swam, just as bathers when the first wave breaks. Pim found some small blackberries and then Twinky wanted some but there weren’t any, only wizened green beginnings. So he ate groundsel instead.

The weaned lambs have become scared without their mothers but they look quite happy in the meadows though jumpy—bunching and running at the slightest excuse. Pim and I watched Jack walking home in the cool golden sun—walking steadily, surely, exactly at his own pace across the meadows, flat fields of canary yellow. We sat on a hay bale in the yard and a single swallow flew by. The green woodpecker has been laughing these last days. Lark has gone. The apples grow larger, tipped with red. September will be luscious with fruits. My instincts are to harvest and preserve everything these days. Memories, pictures, not only berries. The rowan jelly hasn’t set but at least I’ve caught its taste and colour.

Saturday. Went early to town to look for Lark. She was seen by the bowling green, upsetting the players and chased away by an off-duty policeman who complained that she “wouldn’t go away.” The sun so bright rolling along the top of the mountain, the distances and edges of hills and trees so clear. Pim remarked on the darkness and length of our shadows. We all wandered around outside and sat in the sun. I could hardly bear to go inside to make breakfast.

Monday. Constable Clayton telephoned—Lark found near Forest Coal Pit. In town overheard conversation in the butcher’s shop—

Butcher: “Whose funeral is it today then?”

Woman: “The neighbour’s.

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