Devon Morning

It’s early and the small town has thrown back it’s duvet of darkness and it is light. It is slowly and with the quiet of morning beginning to stir. Morning! Morning! Cheery greetings from unknown passers-by. As warm as kisses on my cheeks greet me on each street. My trainered feet trip along the pink-stone edged pavements. Cottages, pastel-coloured, like Edinburgh sweet rock, line the street. Walking, walking through the small town. To move the car before the ticketing witching hour comes round. A light breeze touches my hair and gently strokes my face. Darling silver clouds swim across the blue, cross-hatched by white swans in flight. And in the park happy dogs chase and race and bark. I pass by stone walls, home to pink and white daisy flowers. Tiny ferns and lichens in nooks and crannies and old stone steps. Brightly painted doors flanked by pots of flowers and kicked off and one fallen over wellie boots. And people say, What an inconvenience it must be, having to move your car every day. You must buy a house with a parking bay! But then my morning walk would be no more. And with it gone all the joy of meeting those smiling ladies in tweeds. With their small dogs on leads. And little boys and girls off to school, And laughing young men in pick-ups going to work. And I wonder. How can private parking ever compare, To being part of all of that loveliness just out there.