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I want to see if capturing moments in writing will allow me to savour them later, a liquid memory in a tiny hanging cut crystal bottle, refracting the light. Drawing the glass stopper to inhale the memory, the whole scene perfumes my mind.

The sun’s heat is on my neck and the overhead bee-like drone of a small aircraft momentarily snatches at my awareness. In the foreground birds are singing and as I eavesdrop on their lyrics I hear more notes from the hidden songsters. Inevitable traffic noise maintains a bass line in the distance.

The foreground hillside traps a tiny toy set of limpet-squat buildings while higher up small square fields and their sister trees, some clad in white blossom, enjoy the late spring warmth. The layered distant hills resemble mutli-coloured sand pictures from the Isle of Wight. The base of pale green fields supports jungle green hilliness topped off by a bottle-green forest. The hazy damp green darkness of the penultimate layer looks hoary in the sun’s light, holding hands with the barely visible concluding level that is reconciling its misty greyness with the sky.

Yesterday evening the weather boiled over those hills, looking now as serene as only a naughty child can while wearing her Sunday best frock. We had walked all day in the rain and I swear the weather followed us over the hills. I thought it would stay behind, trapped by the peaks, but the swirling mist rose up as we did to meet the sun. Catching us up on our final leg, the greyness thumbed its nose at the sun and dropped heavy torrents that weighed us down under its soggy curtains.