Roger Deakin in the field past Coachford

Reading Roger Deakin's Notes From Walnut Tree Farm in the field past Coachford, two afternoons de suite. P saw a kingfisher, twice. Rowers came by on the Wednesday, Thursday there was music from down the reservoir, nearer Coachford; a well-bred dog tested us out for ten minutes. Two lads came down for a dip and shouted about in the water then left. I like sliding down into the water into an amphitheatre created by the curve of trees on the far side. The levels are high so grassy banks are submerged. An oak tree for shade behind us, young oaks cut by the mower but growing again. Clouds of midges keep away. The picnic table across the water, untenanted. The second day we could hear a pump going on the far side, as the first few times we came here, which gives rise to thoughts about this river, this reservoir, and best water usage throughout the world, as a reed in front of us rises and submerges in a southeast breeze.

Roger Deakin's notes in and around his Suffolk village chime with a reader in the field past Coachford during a heatwave. He records birds, trees, activities of all kinds on the land in the village, on the common. The long view. The wide and permanent view. The red of the red. Green of the green. Roger Deakin follows the ant on his pages, the life of a neighbour spider, the diet of his local hedgehog. He regrets there's no one to be there to fold sheets in the dance of backing and advancing and putting away. He digs up docks in the field, keeps their blackened stalks, defends the integrity of Cowpasture Lane, bewails modern villas around the common, swims in the moat, sleeps in the railway wagon, wakes with the birds. 

I share one moment of his Suffolk past: the Rougham Tree Fair, where I met my sister once in the seventies, and could have met Roger Deakin. She was into a ride-past of pony and trap. I slept in the porch of her tent. I remember nothing about trees. Or music.