ENTRY FORTY - SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS

It is midsummer and the season hangs full and heavy like the ripening fruit in the orchards. The days are long and languorous, the nights mild. Solstice is only just past and the birds start their serenades at four am when dawn peeps through the shades of night and begins to bleed the black sky pale. Swathes of lawn turned crisp and brown speak of the recent heat; while in the meadows wild grasses wave golden fronds in the sunlight like a mermaid’s hair under the ocean.

Felix too is ripening like a warm peach in the sun, golden skinned and mellow, sweetness oozing from every pore as he embraces all the pleasures of summer. Already Chiswick seems a distant memory, so at home are we in the wilds of Teddington. I would swap a tube stop and proximity to central London for the abundant open spaces and parkland that surround us without hesitation. It seems that every direction culminates in a park or meadow, river or lido; across the grassy expanses of Bushey Park to the tropical blue waters of Hampton Open Air Pool, down the tree lined river path to our very own secret beach at Thames Ditton.The buggy sits folded and forgotten as Felix travels almost exclusively by bike nowadays, perched in his Co Pilot seat observing the world passing by and noting points of interest. Bright red buses whizzing by on the high road, blue and white boats on the river, flashes of lime green parrot in the trees.

His smattering of words has swelled to a babbling brook of nonsense chatter;

wibble wobble bibble babble he says, bubu baby and moomoo mama. He trills pleasantly like a caged canary as he plays with his train set, and every now and then he mimics a word or expression then refuses to repeat it, leaving you wondering if it actually happened. 'Don't know' he echoed as I asked him where the lid of a pen was the other morning. His words are like the whispering of the wind in the willows, invisible and impossible to pin down yet strong enough to sway the boughs. He seems to be at a zenith of happiness, and being able to communicate his contentment adds to the joy. He loves having his own room and his assortment of toys; the train set, play tent and drawing table. He loves the deer of Bushey Park, and has taken to collecting fallen feathers, brushing their softness across his cheeks in an attitude of rapture. He loves Hey Duggee and In The Night Garden on TV. He loves the garden and his sand pit, loves watering the sunflowers I have grown from seed and the tiny allotment I have cultivated in the neglected corner of the garden. Potatoes have shot out their tall straight stalks from the bare earth with unbridled enthusiasm, whilst the broccoli and carrots, hesitant at first, have taken strength from the recent sun and settled in. The giant oaks whisper and wave in the wind and Teddy sprawls sphinx like in his favourite spot by the trunk, half covered by the fronds of last springs bluebells like the tiger in Rousseaus painting.

We have almost everything we need, and whilst the tectonic plates of work continue to shift under our feet there us still cause for anxiety, yet the rightness of our move here, the gains we have made in favour of the losses, means we live literally and metaphorically in the sun. The simple pleasure of opening the kitchen door into the garden gives me daily pleasure. Feeling the honest earth under my fingernails as I work the soil and watch the green shoots emerge like faithful flag bearers is a minor miracle. Al fresco meals every day make not only us but also the birds and Teddy happy, as they feast on the dropped scraps and crumbs post mealtime. We are closer to nature and further from the city, and when needed the silver snake glides to Waterloo and the urban grime of Vauxhall in no time at all. Teddington Lock is where the Thames turns from tidal to a regular river, meaning the water past the locks is no longer saline but fresh, a river you can swim in. Felix loves to watch the endless gush and gurgle of water as it is squeezed through the metal barriers, a manmade waterfall marking the end of the grubby brown river that flows through the great city and the beginning of the green and silver stream that pootles through the suburban landscapes of Teddington and beyond. We have crossed the barrier and somehow in the process entered a real life Swallows and Amazons; a place where where the river is blue and safe and welcoming, where on Sunday afternoons we can decamp with a picnic for a dip, where a cycle ride away is a sandy beach with children frolicking and sturdy boys and girls popping canoes and kayaks into the water, where likeminded people can escape to a place of childhood innocence and joy free of the worries and duties of city living. One foot in the country one in the town, and already I know which foot is the happier one...