The serene carvings of Affpuddle ...

A few weeks ago, one afternoon in early October, I walked with Penny from Moreton to Affpuddle - smokey clouds half covered a pale sky - I was still refusing to wear socks - to do so, I thought, would remind me of my former life as an apparatchik -

We crossed over the Frome by way of the pedestrian bridge - during the summer, I'd gleefully watched a Range Rover come to a sputtering halt in the wide ford -

The footpaths and bridleways took us across ploughed fields and through dark, silent, woods - my boat shoes soon became soaked in waterlogged meadows -

We saw a dead tree, with blackened, anguished, branches - buzzards hovered above new furrows -

We passed by an isolated house, screened by laurels and oaks - dogs barked unseen -

We took shelter from sudden icy rain inside Affpuddle Church - we sipped scalding coffee, sitting on a pew - I read about Naaman in the huge, opened, bible - outside, on set back buttresses, were perched sinister lichened shapes, like great fierce birds - Pesvner calls them grotesques -

I was much taken by the carvings decorating the pulpit and pew ends - I looked at the spare, beautiful, figures - I ran my fingertips over their serene faces - I felt my hectic, shameful, heart become still - tears washed the ash from my eyes -