Time

It was the kind of October afternoon only East Anglia can produce. A drowsy sun in a cloudless sky, the air still.

The smoke from the wood fire eased lazily into the sky accompanied by the intermittent birdsong from the soaring larks and the crackle of the hedge trimmings. The green bank of an ancient baulk shared its scents, unique to autumn: crushed grass, fruiting trees, the sharp tang of broken fungi.