TEA IN THE SHIRE

I sat in the garden, drinking tea on the bench. It was late last summer when I was there last, reading a book, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, as I remember.

Today, rather than squinting in the fading light of a late August evening, I found myself squinting in the sunshine of a hot Spring day. The air was buzzing, the tea was warm and a digestive was perched happily on the arm of the bench.

I caught a view of myself, reflected in the conservatory windows. They weren't there last August of course; the conservatory was only built a few months ago. I stared into the glass.

I don't know whether it was a trick of the light. It may have been. The sun was pretty much overhead and was flooding the garden with warm bright sunlight. Of course, it might not have been an illusion.

Either way, my hair was glowing brilliant white.

That's depressing, I thought. I rolled my head around, just to check that it was really me. It was. Renaissance-Gandalf supping tea in the shire.

There was a time when my friends and I (on days like today) would think nothing of jumping in cars after church, stopping off at Tesco Express and then lying on the grass by the river until the sun went down. But those friends are long gone - married, busy, emigrated, backslidden, grown-up... sensible.

Sensible. That's the problem with being 30-something: people expect sensible. They expect grown-up, responsible husband, father, mother, wife, maturity and all that they think that means. I expected it too: I expected to be taking my own children to the river by now, to be buying ice-creams, spreading out picnic blankets and pretending to be silly (as only sensible people can) while the most beautiful woman in the world sighs with a mixture of exasperation and contentment. With every passing year, that little dream, buried in my heart since I was five, is... fading... just like the colour of my hair.

I crunched into my digestive biscuit, staring at my reflection. I wiped a little tear away from my cheek. Maybe it is just a trick of the light, I thought, hopefully.

'So do all who live to see such times,' replied Renaissance Gandalf.