The fields behind our old house in Shurton, Somerset, hold many memories: Poo-stick bridge, the sledging hill and the Log (an old barn full of hay bales where we use to play).
To accompany our walks, my sister Lou would make up amazing imaginary stories – where the four of us were destined to save the planet from alien invasion!
Sadly the sledging hill is no more – amalgamated into the Hinkley Point C Power Station construction site. But the memory lives on in us…
The still air was cool, tickling my extremities with a feather-like touch. I took another step forward across the ploughed field, now devoid of life. A Martian landscape churned and spat out by machinery into discarded mounds like spoil heaps. A conglomerate of stone chippings, like an asteroid field encased and preserved in mud.
I trod down, my welly boots like magnets. The muddy soil squelched below my feet, remnants clinging as I lifted to take another step. Wrapping my scarf tighter around my neck, I let out a breath, white and smoky wisps before dissipating into the air around me.
Beside me trudged my three sisters and our dog ‘Bessie’.
We were on an adventure…
I took a brief glance upwards towards the metal gate at the edge of the field, crepuscular rays bouncing off its rusty brown bars in stark contrast to the contiguous bare winter hedgerows, brambles knitted viciously amongst the branches. Beyond, the thunderheads loomed maliciously.
Bessie barked and my elder sister Lou beside me gasped.
‘They are coming!’ she exclaimed with a squeal of excitement.
Grabbing mine and my younger sister’s hand, we ran towards the gate as fast as our little legs could carry us.
Adept at gate vaulting, we flung ourselves over, ducking behind the hedgerow to reassess. Once Lou gave the all clear, we tiptoed over poo-stick bridge, hoping the troll was fast asleep underneath.
In the next field, we took giant leaps over the stream, landing safely on the muddy bank with glee, before clambering over a wooden style and into the adjoining field, known as the ‘sledging hill’.
In the middle sat a gnarled and twisted solitary oak tree.
The ‘safe zone’ was in sight.
Copyright © 2019 Lottie McKnight. All rights reserved.