Becarino

The wind blew my wood stack down; the rain ingresses everywhere but the house; the brash fire still had heat and I moved it on in the wheelbarrow. Knicked my thumb with the bill hook (‘marracio’) which was careless. It was wet and unremitting work firing up another blaze of sodden tangly hazel brash. At one point, heaving myself up from my muddy knees where’d I’d been blowing up the fire , I turned and saw six whitetail deer looking for a way across the field. They hesitated, front legs raised and beat a retreat back into the forest.

Later we took a drive in shifting light up to Quorle along tiny roads overhung with lichen festooned oak trees. On the way back, down on the diminutive upper Arno floodplain this drainage ditch caught the late afternoon light.

We watched Local Hero with tea.