Home
Home is a quiet flat on a hill. The last street in Cambridge before prime green belt. Small, but comfortable. The further hill stretches into the infinite, as if the sea lies just beyond. Two little domesticated gardens decorated with cottage flowers in summer. The two neat sheds for the tools and the lawn mower. A stone path. Peonies, poppies, roses, clematis. A fluffy cat stretches asleep on the shed roof. So near the town, its shops eager to sell a million useless items, its colleges and chapels clutching after dignity, their careful lawns and man-made meadows, its invisibly-calculated air of a rural welcome. Here, illusion meets reality and triumphs. The view from the flat is magic. The heavens create a son-et-lumiere effect. This is where I observe the working of the pathetic fallacy as the elements synchronise with the zeitgeist. The sun laughs. The light of joy spreads across the hill’s face. The rain cries or melts with relief. I am never alone.