The other night I reclined in a Barcelona chair sipping a dry martini (shaken, not stirred) in the penthouse suite of a gentleman dressed in pyjamas. He sipped his martini and read a little From Russia With Love out loud. Ian Fleming drank a bottle of gin a day, he told us, as my three friends and I marvelled at the potency of the meagre liquid in our glasses. And while Fleming snoozed and awoke sporadically to try out the drinks from agent 007’s repertoire, his wife got on with writing the Bond novels. I love Brighton – the things that go on in hidden away places, the things you learn - especially when Spring is in the air and the May Festival is just around the corner.
So, it is here, at last…Spring…all blowsy and frilled with blossom, tossing its lush good looks this way and that in the April breezes, demanding attention. And we scurry about squeezing in a last minute pruning, planting out fragile seedlings because those killer frosts that still sneak over the fields on an April morning just don’t seem possible when the midday sun warms your back.
We’ve been here in the country almost two years now. I was gazing out of the window the morning after my night as a Bond Girl (albeit of the Moneypenny type), taking stock of how our lives have changed over this time. Everything was quite still in the field, the sky was clear blue, the hawthorn blossom that edges our field crisply white against it. The kettle began to boil. I was just about to turn away from the window and make coffee for the land workers when Peggy and Bluebell – Charlotte’s long haired dachshund - bounded onto centre stage in the field and tumbled about in a raucous display of affection. I arranged some tin cups on a tray as I watched the dogs and then, in the distance, I spotted two figures walking slowly up the long drive towards the house. The woman was clutching a book to her breast. Her pale frizzy hair and green pleated skirt betrayed no hint of vanity. Beside her, a man in beige with a black briefcase. Jehovah’s Witnesses! They proceeded slowly as if time was of no issue to them, seemingly also oblivious to the dogs that hurtled about them in circles. Quickly I loaded the tray with the coffee pot, milk and sugar and I was just about to scarper out of the back door to take refuge in the greenhouse when I noticed something else out of the window. A shed was moving serenely across the field, complete with air drying hams swinging inside it. From where I was standing this was all I could see…the shed moving at a funereal pace, the dogs darting in and out of view and the purposeful progress of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I grabbed the tray and ran.
Outside, peering over the garden wall, it became clear that the shed was being pulled along by our little blue tractor with Dave at the helm, an aim clearly in mind. I mouthed the word ‘Coffee?’ at him, but I had been spotted by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and they were heading straight for me.
Well, I can’t be rude, so I stood my ground and waited. I listened to birdsong while they preached – and then I very politely told them that I had to get out into the field and assist creation by planting some more seeds!
