Who will buy?

Who will buy this wonderful morning?
Such a sky you never did see!
Who will tie it up with a ribbon
And put it in a box for me?

Lionel Bart, from Oliver!

Somehow, birdsong always sounds sweeter after rain. I don’t know whether it’s joy at the prospect of a new abundance of juicy worms or the fact that the sound is rendered more pure by the clearness of the air following a rainstorm, but it always catches me off guard, sending me away on one of my beauty-of-nature reveries. Soaring swallows and chavvy starlings gather in the yellow and russet treetops to chatter noisily about whether it’s going to be South Africa or the Canaries for this year’s winter holiday, or whether they’re just going to sit tight and wait for their Polish cousins to join them, and as we cross the ancient bridge over the swollen river Avon on the way to school we’re greeted by tottering rows of Malmesbury’s medieval cottages flushed with the low, bright morning sun. Yesterday, Brown Dog and I went to Westonbirt Arboretum, whose gaudy posters announce the arrival of its world-famous Autumn colour, along with the fact that their prices have gone up again, as they do every year about this time as the leaves turn – granted, there were some breathtaking red and gold maples there, but when all’s said and done it’s just a wood and you can get something just as spectacular along the muddy river walk behind our house or along by the railway sidings, and all for free.

Every season has its own magical beauty, but somehow autumn’s is the most potent, underwritten as it is with the caustic paradox of the fact that all this glorious colour is born out of decay and death. And today, as the sun’s glittering reflection bounces treacherously off slick, rainsoaked roads before disappearing into tree-shaded tunnels I remember that Britain’s seductive country lanes with their bewitching bends and blind summits are some of the country’s most dangerous – something like half of all road deaths happen on country roads such as these.

* * *

Today I’m looking after Taliban dog – a bundle of fleas and fur whose early years before the rescue centre found him must have contained some profound experience to send him into a frenzy of barking and bare-toothed leaping at any suggestion of music or dancing – indeed anything other than a totally sober, slow-paced walk. The Archers theme tune is particularly hated and even stretching your arms up and yawning is often enough to send him off on one. It’s such a gorgeous morning, I take him and Brown Dog off round the river walk and along Shady Lane. The Avon is in full spate today, as it gushes noisily over the weir in muddy torrents, churning and foaming – indeed Shady Lane itself has been transformed into a dusky babbling brook as the dogs dash splashily through it while I trudge muddily behind in my wellies. A couple of beams from the little footbridge have been carried away by the river, too, so I teeter along the remaining two planks, and here run into Mrs Tanzer, who has the news that some bullocks have escaped from one of the nearby fields and have been spotted heading West to Startley. Suddenly H’s satnav cow radar seems not such a ridiculous idea after all. I call the dogs back to clip on leads, when I notice Taliban dog has somehow found a way through the fence to the cow field and now can’t find his way back. Thankfully, it appears to be the field the escapees have recently abandoned, and I manage to wriggle under a prickly bush and hold up the wire for him to squeeze back through. Less thankfully, though he appears to have found a particularly large and sloppy cowpat and rolled exuberantly in it – his tail wags excitedly as I try to clip his lead on without making contact with any part of him – a task which is as futile as it is smelly. Luckily, we don’t meet any of the escapees on our way back – or indeed anyone else as, by now the sniffle I started out with has turned into a full-blown runny nose which I’m doing my best to contain without recourse to having to put my now cowpat-smeared hands anywhere near my face. When we finally get home, I discover my back-door key has somehow escaped from my pocket, but thankfully we have a spare in the garage, so I can get in. I can’t open the back door, though, and neither does half an hour’s fruitless rummaging unearth the spare. I ring the carpenter who made the door last year, but sadly he has no record of the lock number, so it will mean breaking the lock and replacing it with a new one. Ho hum – more stern looks from H in store tonight, I fear.