GIFFORD MORNING

I drove into dreamy Gifford early on 1 June 2012, a Friday.  I had to get away from the claustrophobia of the house and out into the fresh air, to smell the musky sweetness of the honeysuckle and hear the prattling of the exuberant chaffinch.  The rain had stopped, but a sheet of low cloud covered the sun.  The air felt chilly and damp. 

I parked in the row of limes that dominates the village green.  An old man was practicing his golf swing on the grass, watched by his dog.  The dog looked bored.  I strolled into the village, hands clasped behind my back.  A solitary painter was up a ladder, painting the windows of a cottage on the main street.  Outside the dishevelled vehicle repair garage, a car stood sideways against the kerb.  One wheel had caved in completely.  The car's suspension had collapsed on that side.

I went to smell the wallflowers on a strip of land at the junction of the Haddington and Duns roads.   On the wall was a plaque dedicated to some 18th century village clergyman who had signed the American Declaration of Independence, next to one relating to an MP who had represented the constituency in the 1960s and 70s. The busts of both men were carved into the bronze.  The cleric was portly, and wore a periwig, whilst the MP had wavy hair and sported a collar and tie.  

I walked into the graveyard of the prim white church.  I examined the grave of the 10th Marquis of Tweeddale, who is buried there with other members of his family.  His tomb was large, but plain.  I looked at some of the newer graves, and I was moved by the early deaths of some of those sleeping there.

I wandered up to where the old school had been.  It had lain empty for years, but some builders were repairing the boundary walls.  All of the outbuildings had been demolished.  I crossed the road, and followed a footpath that bordered a field of oilseed rape, its cloying smell attacking my nasal cavities as I strolled through. I turned left and headed back into the village.  A middle-aged woman limped out of her cottage and unlocked her car, only yards from the painter.  An old man in a lumberjack hat pulled an unwilling terrier on its lead. A huge lorry roared through the village, the noise of its engine grating, dysfunctional, unwelcome. 

I walked across a tiny bridge, over a stream swollen by the recent rains, and headed for the bowling green and the site of the old railway station, now a smart housing estate. The greenkeeper was mowing the grass of the bowling green.  Builders were completing an annexe to the pavilion.  Of bowlers, there was no sign.  I headed back into the village by way of a crescent of modern bungalows with flat roofs, these dwellings almost hidden away amongst the extravagantly sprouting spring vegetation. 

I returned to my car.  My walk had taken me an hour and I felt that it had achieved its purpose - my spirits had been lifted and I felt once more caspable of engaging with the day-to-day tedium generally accorded to the semi-retired.