Sunset, twilight, dusk, night

I love the summer. Last night, we spent our evening with a friend – a rare enough delight in itself, these days. We sat in her garden and talked about the past year; about grieving and about mutual friends as well as wildflower gardening and ponds. We talked through sunset and twilight until the first bats appeared, and then we walked back in the late evening with a bag of yellow rattle seeds in my pocket (exchanged for a jar of redcurrant jelly) – as the remnants of red faded in the West. As we passed over the railway bridge, looking westwards, the signals, at green, were the brightest objects – shining along the lines towards us. Behind us to the east, a couple of distant helicopters were flying silently in formation; but above our heads the sky was tinted from an inky Paynes Grey through the darkest purples as it reached the afterglow. It would be too lazy to describe the texture of the sky as velvet. It seemed more as if we were gazing into the dark wing of a moth – iridescent and deep, as if turning your head a little might cause it to flash with blue .

These city evenings are incredibly special and rare. With the temperature still above 2oC the air was thick with the perfume of weed, jasmine and hot tarmac; an atmosphere made for moths and young people; a nightfall capable of inspiring rash promises and rash acts. By eleven, after walking a mile across town, we reached the allotment to close the polytunnel. We were probably the oldest people on the streets by at least three decades. For no particular reason I asked Madame whether she ever felt old. “No” she said – “Do you?”. “No”.

Author: Dave Pole

I've spent my life doing a lot of things, all of them interesting and many of them great fun. When most people see my CV they probably think I'm making things up because it includes being a rather bad welder and engineering dogsbody, a potter, a groundsman and bus driver. I taught in a prison and in one of those ghastly old mental institutions as an art therapist and I spent ten years as a community artist. I was one of the founding members of Spike Island, which began life as Artspace Bristol. ! wrote a column for Bristol Evening Post (I got sacked three times, in which I take some pride) and I worked in local and network radio and then finally became an Anglican parish priest for 25 years, retiring at 68 when I realised that the institutional church and me were on different paths. What interests me? It would be easier to list what doesn't, but I love cooking and baking with our home grown ingredients. I'm fascinated by botany and wildlife in general, and botanical illustration. We have a camper van that takes us to the wild places, we love walking, especially in the hills, and we take too many photographs. But what really animates me is the question "what does it mean to be human?". I've spent my life exploring it in every possible way and the answer is ..... well, today it's sitting in the van in the rain and looking across Ramsey Sound towards Ramsey Island. But it might as easily be digging potatoes or making pickle, singing or finding an orchid or just sitting. But it sure as hell doesn't mean getting a promotion, beasting your co-workers or being obsequious to power, which ensured that my rise to greatness in the Church of England flatlined 30 years ago after about 2 days. But I'm still here and still searching for that elusive sweet spot, and I don't have to please anyone any more. Over the last 50 or so years we've had a succession of gardens, some more like wildernesses when we were both working full-time, but now we're back in the game with our two allotments in Bath.

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