Ilminster

'If he's only five, just say he's four if anyone gets on the bus', says the bus driver, 'and then you don't need to pay for him'. And the only thing that surprises me is that the busdriver doesn't call me 'Sweetheart' while he's at it! Nearly everyone else does. 'I'm so sorry Sweetheart' when I call up the hospital and I don't get to talk to Mummy. 'My darling, my ducky', even if you are only buying a packet of envelopes. A lovely Postman Pat type world where it's normal to be nice to everyone and go smiling your way down the street. The funny thing is that if you come from Paris it's all rather a shock. Suddenly there is no need to look even half way decent. This kind of niceness would see straight through the superficial you think happily, with your hair a bit wet and your jeans a bit grubby. We sit in a friend's back garden looking out over the middle of Ilminster, over the Minster itself, a lovely rosy golden stone, and on beyond to the hills and the hedges and a summer sky, pale hazy blue. Fluffy cats drift in and out amongst the tall wild daisies. Life seems suddenly too precious to be living it anywhere but here.