During those hot summer months before Ian joined us, H and I often used to lie out on a rug together in the back garden, enjoying the sun, while I read to her or played games, or we had a nap together. It was so secluded that she could run around with nothing on, which she enjoyed. Lying out in the garden, looking up through the trees to the blue sky, I often thought to myself 'What a perfect world.'
I enjoyed the freedom of us being able to go wherever we wanted without feeling I was putting us in danger. I soaked up all the Englishness of everything around - the hedge enclosed country lanes, red brick and tile hung 19th century houses, cricket fields, field gates, hop gardens, the wild flowers, the sound of church bells, Tonbridge castle, the model steam railway in the park, the fresh air, the entrance to an old inn, the friendly people, the little corner shop, the long walks, looking down at ducks and swans swimming under a bridge over the Medway. I felt as though my soul had been suffering a drought for years and now I was soaking up everything I had longed for since I had left 15 years before.
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