As I lay there on that cool grass, the sunshine pooling around my bare feet, with a battered book face down on my chest, I closed my eyes and breathed in the honeyed air of the summer and just was. Inhaling the clear watery notes mixed with freshly cut grasses and the comforting scent of feeding hay I forgot myself and indulged in a private moment of utter bliss. The gentle sound of clattering pans drifted from the open kitchen windows on the warm breeze to meet with the gentle nickering of horses, sporadic barking, and distant tinkling of flowing water. I listened for the beating hooves accompanied by their jangling carts on the quiet road hidden behind the house and the trees as I waited for my father to return from the village. I lazily let my eyelids flutter open and stared wide-eyed up into the clear sky, bringing my hand above my face I examined my long fingers in the sunlight, and noticed the olive tone that spending all summer outside had given them. With a little exertion I pulled myself up and wandered over to the gnarled tree at the back of the lawns where I enjoyed the cool of the shade given by the large oak. Leaning against the bark I ran my fingers down the fraying leather spine of my novel and began to read the tea coloured pages, into which I was shortly lost. Lost into places I had never been, as I fell in love with people I had never met. Unexpectedly the clinging of metal brought my eyes up from the pages and from across the lawns I watched as the large wrought iron gates opened. Snapping the book quickly shut I gathered my skirts and slipped on my shoes, I ran straight across the lawn and onto the path to meet my father as he made his way to the house. How I had missed him, each time he left it felt longer now, as if time passed slower when we were apart.

-Let me know any thoughts you have. I may link this with some of the other short extracts I have posted or continue from here but I am not sure yet, however I am enjoying writing it. This piece was inspired by the instrumental soundtrack from the film Far From The Madding Crowd based upon the novel of the same name-

ABBG