Road to Telford, and Back Again

Firstly, a coffee in a Wetherspoons, Bristol. I am mostly thinking how happy I am to own prescription sunglasses, for on the drive up I have seen, in sharp, perfect detail, so many trees throwing mad shapes in hedges and fields; dead looking stumps with stabby branches, the type of fir trees that grow on mountains in oriental paintings, sweet fluffy buds of willow. Then it occurs to me how much attention I pay to trees, and maybe this is a good opportunity to watch people instead. A lady at the bar, at 10am, is reaching for a pint. ‘It’s my birthday, tomorrow,’ she explains. I look at the faces, weary from drinking, and they all have their stories, but mostly, after roughly three or four minutes, I am missing the trees.

Then we follow a rainbow, which leads us to Telford. I think the rainbow might be lost.

Secondly, a vodka soda in a Wetherspoons, with friends, before Mr and me slink back to our hotel. There are hardly any pavements on this leg of the journey so we sling our legs over road barriers, across neat grass verges. I say we are urban foxes now, Mr says he is an urban silver fox.

The next day, on the way back again, I am having coffee in the sunshine at a Moto service station. The sun at my back puts my shadow where I can see it.

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