It was an unsettling evening, and not knowing why made it more disconcerting. Nevertheless, I continued with my final brush strokes, a shimmy of green and grey. I looked over to Bobo who was nodding approvingly, darting his gaze back and forth from window to canvass. Yes, I was almost there.
Our momentary pause was interrupted by a loud rustling sound from behind the old oak tree. We both cautiously walked to the window and peered out looking for any signs of the sound. It was coming to the end of Autumn with the ground awash with leaves, seemingly waiting for a child's vigour to wake it.
And then we saw it, oh so fleetingly. A small woman in widowers garb, black from head to toe, ran from under the oak tree leaping the six foot hedge next to the fields, vanishing as quickly as she appeared. Bobo and I turned towards each other slowly, doing our best impersonation of laughing clowns at a school fete.
Dumbfounded, we paused for breath. As Bobo began with a sense of futility some explanation of what we witnessed, a loud growl resonated from beyond the fields. We both poked our heads through the window, and there she was in all her glory, white tufts of hair spilling from her head scarf atop a battered Norton hurtling through the fields yelling “I made it, I made it!”.