If a satellite, or a Martian, transited high above my village right now, it might capture as an image a large and unearthly, rectangular piece of discolouration running diagonally across my lawn.
It is approximately twenty metres long, three metres wide and with patches at each end where the grass has been worn away by some kind of unnatural action.
It is, of course, a makeshift cricket strip, and on various breaks during the working day, three of us spend fifteen minutes hurling ‘Incredi-balls’ at each other, and talking a lot of rubbish about swing, lift and spin.
I am conscious that it’s all easy for me. As it is for anyone who is healthy, has a house with space, and a garden; anyone who has dogs to walk and a place to walk them; anyone who has people around them, and is not old; anyone who is not working in an ICU, a respiratory ward, a care home or anywhere else in the coalface of Covid; anyone who has not had someone stolen from them by the disease; anyone who is not in an abusive relationship; anyone with a job to go back to; anyone who can put food on the table without having to think about it; anyone, in fact, who can see a little way into the future, and imagine how it all might unscramble. I am anxious about many things, including what my world will look like afterwards, but I count my blessings daily.
And, for some bizarre reason, those blessings distil in my mind the idea of an equally sunny day in maybe six to eight weeks’ time, twenty five miles west of here on an acre of Hampshire hillside. And there, against the blue of the sky, the green of the grass and the white clothing of the players, I am waiting to receive the first ball of my delayed cricket season from twenty-two yards to my south. Then it will be over.
In the great scheme of things, it is so trivial as to be ridiculous, and yet even that doesn’t stop it being one of those beautiful thoughts that gets me out of bed, like cauliflower cheese, or Lagavullin.
Life is fuelled by such hope.
Meanwhile, on the subject of hope, listen to the sound of the Curlew, whose World day it is tomorrow, and let your heart soar.
And if you catch it soaring high enough, drop into our website at Curlew Action, and help us make sure they are there for you next year, and for ever.
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