At lunch a cry went out, the cat had sculpted a ridgeline out of chris’ loaf of bread, the day before it had been in the back of his car devouring bagels. When it’s not your bagels, its rather funny. Then after chiselling away at three dimensional curves for a the rest of the day, we just had to pray they would all fit together in the morning.
By the fire we had a pasta night, Dylan and I inspired by the great swathes of nettles made up a nettle pesto, which wasn’t half bad. Ben gave me access to his veggie patch, which he may later have regretted, as I’ve been starved of that luxury for three months!
As we had ridden towards the woodland the first day we had been overwhelmed by the strong aroma of garlic, and Ben pointed me in the direction of its source. He had a patch of wild garlic under a tree and when disturbed it’s glorious scent rose up from the bluebells and bugles flowers.
Then we all bounced off to the brewery through darkened lanes lined with stone walls. There was live music on, but it was so crowded that we could barely squeeze inside. “that’s Ben Law from grand designs” a gent with leather elbow patches whispered to his wife. Ben Law from grand designs sighed world weary when we told him, not his crowd. Then the call went out “hard liquor for the Lady!” Ben could not stand for someone to be drinkless and as beer doesn’t agree with me we were all marching towards the pub where Ben introduced me to a fine tequila. The proprietor was an Algerian, who didn’t like to be called french and was sat beret on head, playing classical Spanish songs on the guitar.
Symbolic shells were cracked as we grew comfortable in each others company. Dylan’s story of how he was refused entry into a scotish fell race because he had no himalyan root finding experience lead to marvellous yarns from Ben about his adventures lost in the himalyas seeking shelter and satiation from buddist monastries. We agreed that the world was not as wild as it use to be over a g&t.
