0. The mist is heavy on the back – a solid wall of fuzz from just beyond the ditch. The dawn light streaks it with gold and pink.
0b. At the other end of the day, the mist clouding the distant hills – the ones beyond Halifax, the ones beyond Brighouse, the ones beyond Bradford – is stained by the sunset. The sun hangs round and heavy, a peach mirrored disc that eventually seems to give in to gravity.
1. We watch the Red Arrows again – just from the bedroom window this time. They – and their trails – are a lot starker today, standing out from the blue sky rather than blurring into the clouds. They mostly stay as a group out over the beach, over the paying crowds, but every now and then one breaks free and comes thundering across so close that we can see its markings.
2. Bacon butties.
3. The beach is busy – everyone enjoying the last of the sun with just the occasional World War 2 fighter plane or bomber passing over to keep things interesting. Lily runs between us in the shallows then sits at John’s feet to stare at him and will him to give her another treat. (She has forgotten that I’m the one with the pocketful of gravy bones.)
3b. We return to the hill near my old school to watch a few more planes. Afterwards, I turn around look at the buildings and try to figure out what was where. I also point at the strip of grass just on the other side of the fence and explain how I remember learning about the speed of sound right there – it seems a fitting memory given the sound/visual discrepancies we’ve experienced watching the planes.
3c. John giggles and giggles at the solar-powered dancing flower.
4. On a whim, on our way home, we loop around the fire we’d been watching from the conservatory. The little village is across the fields from my mum and dad’s house (albeit two miles across the fields) but if I’ve ever been there before, it was perhaps three decades ago. We pass through it and down Moss Lane, watching the hay burn.
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