The Summer of '93

Kissing fields

Our penultimate weekend together was just around the corner. He took me up to the river Avon. We walked into the small town he grew up in and was very fond of. It really was a nothing place, a blink and you missed it. But given that he was never there and he was clearly very close to his Family, it was completely understandable. There was no doubt that the town was perched on the River Avon, an area of unspoilt beauty and I was pleasantly surprised how beautiful it was. It was such a pleasant walk. We came across a wooden kissing gate, leading into a wheat field, that was ripe and ready for harvesting. I stopped. "You have to kiss me!"

"Eh?" he said. He obviously didn't know about the tradition of a kissing gate.

"Here," I said, "I'll show you." As he reached the gate I stretched over the top and puckered up. He reciprocated. He came through the gate.

"We have to cross through here to get to the river." He explained.

I started to walk around the periphery of the field so as to not damage the wheat. The ears were high and uniformly gold brown. Before we reached the woodland adjacent to the river, he kissed me. He grabbed my hand and pulled me down carefully on top of him. I let out an impromptu laugh in surprise. I joined him and we both gazed up at the sky. It was odd as I couldn't help worrying that someone might walk past. After all we'd just passed through a public walkway. The wheat was springy and smelt of grass as it rustled gently. It wasn't the most comfortable bed, but I went with it. It was the mixture of being somewhere not so conventional that heightened the thrill and it had been so unexpected.

We lay there and he chewed on a stem of wheat. The air was fresh and a light breeze teased my nose.

Ali said after some time, "So I'm going back to Berlin soon."

"It's soon come around hasn't it?" I said.

"Aye, too fast. I was thinking you could take a long weekend and we could head up to Iona."

"How far is it?" I asked.

"Well it's a drive. The Scottish Kings are buried there. My pals and I went there last time and ended up sleeping in the church."

"How come?"

"Well we missed the last ferry home and it was either sleep on the beach or on the floor in the Abbey."

Was there no B&B to stay in?"

"We'd spent all the money in the pub. The minister wasn't for letting us in."

It was classic Ali.

"You know I love you don't you?" He said.

"Yeah, I know you can't help it!" I laughed.

"I never felt this way about Charlie you know." he paused, went quiet and I could see on his face that he was obviously giving something some thought.

"You sound like you've never really been in love before when you say that. You must have had some feelings for her at some point." I said philosophically.

He replied, "we never made love, we just had sex" which referred to Charlie and him. Too much information! There are times when we have to get things out of our system. However there are times when you wish folk would keep their thoughts to themselves.

We then got up and carried on with our walk down to the river's edge.

"I used to come here when I was younger, all the time and swim." It was more of a paddle than swimming day. We walked along the banks and then headed back to the house.

"The kettle's on, do you want one?" His Father shouted from the kitchen as I took my shoes off in the hall.

"Yes please, Mr McGregor." I replied.