Day 7: We will remember them

1st July 1916 - the first day of the Battle of the Somme - 60,000 British casualities.  In one day.  The number of British dead on that same day roughly equal to the crowd that packed Wembley Stadium for Live Aid.  At 11 o'clock today I am in reception at Volkswagen in Milton Keynes.  There's a two minute silence.  Interrupted by a callow young salesman, all aftershave and hair wax and arrogantly loud shoes.  He's shushed by the receptionist, but two minutes is too long to silence his importance, as he can't resist making audible comments under his breath to his colleague.  I realise that he must have no imagination at all.  None.  Children in uniforms, slaughtered in their thousands, drowing in mud and blood.  Dulce et decorum est...  What?  The Golf comes with three year free servicing and warranty?  Great. 

I am in no mood for work, and fortunately fate intervenes.  So many of the participants have pulled out last minute, that the job is cancelled.  I will still be paid, but have driven to Milton Keynes for no purpose.  But I find one.  Calling on Hilary - it's been years since I last saw her, but these evaporate as we speed talk for two hours.  Above her front door, the stained glass window that I made for her back in 2001.  I still love it.  So does she.  Her children are teenagers; she has a three-legged dog, who growls like a paper tiger, and shows the whites of her eyes before actively seeking love.  Plans are made (me and Hils, not the dog) - visits, red wine, fires, and specifically, big mushrooms.  To eat - not the hallucinatory kind.  (Fingers burnt; lessons learnt.)

I drive home through November fog, trees looming out of the milky haze.  Everything is dark and drippy with moisture.  Beautiful, beautiful Redbourn Road, slicing and curving through fields alongside the Ver.  Whatever the season, every time I drive this route my heart expands.  Back home, and feeling calm.  Have a sense of good people around me, like stars suspended in a galaxy.  Today I am strong and capable.  Today I don't need to remind myself to breathe.  Because I just do.