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All over the community, as the heatwave defied local
radio statistics, pullovers, cardigans, boots, electric blankets, hot
water bottles and heavy clothing were buried out of sight. Winter had been
abolished, the word was stuck out of the dictionary. It had never existed.
Balancing on the edge of things, between worlds,
Lana sketched by the water side, with ladybirds, midges, thunderbugs and
the lilt of the lapping reservoir for company. It’s rippled surface
mirrored the reeds, the grassy banks and the oak trees. "Perhaps a
lover is like a mirror," she mused aloud, "throwing back to me
my own reflection."
Caterpillars had shed their unwanted parts and the
mad dance of butterflies exploding from hedgerows had begun. The summer
hummed as metallic dragon flies glinted in the sunlight. Lana watched
‘waterboatmen’ insects skate on the surface of the village pond as
Jerry reminded her of the miracle of surface tension.
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Sunday cricket, village fetes, gymkhanas,
agricultural shows, stately homes and garden barbecues. Jerry and Lana
became the tourists of their own lives. At other times, they would banter
in the garden of the Bull’s Head, a stone’s throw from his rented
cottage. Here, much of the entertainment was in the form of observing
Ibiza-hopping, chocolate-skinned locals in their white fineries and brand
ostentatious sunglasses - always with glass in hand - boasting of
something they had acquired, or of somewhere they had been.
Lana and Jerry ventured south to the hot urban
capital. She stepped over the cracks of London paving stones, noticing the
weeds maturing between. He fed her strawberries and cream at Court number
two. At Henley Regatta they couldn’t stop touching each other.
Later,
back at home, she read him ‘Wind in the Willows’ and he once again
tried to explain the importance of The Big Bang.
"But
what came before the Big Bang?" she queried, "The Big Foreplay?"
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