Picking blackberries ...

Just before the Sunday lamb chops at my mum and dad's, Anne asked me to pick some blackberries - 

I left my dad in his armchair, finishing his midday Tanglefoot - 

My mum was in the kitchen, looking out the window - 

She watched the neighbours drive off in their Kia Sedona to The Rusty Cutter -

The hands of my watch were slowing - soon they would stop - 

The Prince of Wales had been open for an hour - 

Two men leaned against its green tiles, digging out cigarettes from the pockets of their trackies - 

The blackberries grew in luscious dangerous tangles out the back, next to the lock up garages - they stained my fingers as I eased them off their prickly stems - 

I remembered picking blackberries with my mum when she was straight and tall - 

I'd walked then in her warm shadow, chattering like a tiny bird - 

12.00

Sunday 30 September 2015

Staunton Road

Havant