The valley below the house has been choked by mist in the early mornings, the cool approach of autumn obvious as you step outdoors. Hedgerows and orchards are heavy with fruit, dropping so many windfall apples that the local blackbirds are having a hard time keeping up with the avalanche of supply. Robins are again becoming vocal, with their songs from the high branches cutting through the clear, suddenly chill, air.
With young birds fledged and nest sites abandoned, the sound of chainsaws echoes around the village as those who have held back from serious gardening, to protect the occupants of their hedges, try and restore some order before the weather turns too bad. Logs are cut to length for the stove and stacked to dry for a future winter.
Another harvest has occurred, long anticipated but still a surprise when it came. The sole village telephone box, shorn of its technical components almost a year ago, was finally removed one weekend by a pair of genial workers with a very large lorry. While not one of the classic, treasured designs, the box had served us on the corner of the lane for decades – its light often the only illumination in the village once the scattered streetlights had gone out.
Aside from its vital utility in the days before telephones were ubiquitous – one friend recalled using it to summon a midwife when they had no landline – the phone box was useful for navigation in a settlement where many houses lack a number, or even a street name; and as a destination for late-night taxi drivers it was succinct and unambiguous. Many of its ilk have found a new role as rural locations for a defibrillator – but, sadly, not ours.
The old phone box put up quite a fight. It took a while to get it and its heavy concrete base airborne on the end of the hoist, then swung aboard the lorry. The broken-tooth hole it left was filled with rubble and topsoil – so it is easy to miss the fact that anything has happened. I might wander past with some native wildflower seed to give the new patch a good start. Something red would seem appropriate.
