I meander on looking at how the branches reach out to one another and making silent music in my mind, summoning the Fleischmanns and veering to other songs more felt in the body than heard.
I go through the Fleischamnn quarter and see there is a shovel propped against the ledge of the platform footprint of The Cottage, perhaps its P the walls, I go on to the ponds past one of P’s walls, noticing the changing brickwork, showing its curious mending and different strokes. Moving on to the gothic quarter, and up to Scotland and the oak where I stop and salute the witches, a straggle of burnt gorse bushes throwing their shapes against the landscape. On my way down again I see there have been other rituals – laurel leaves laid at the fairies’ door.
At the home stretch I notice, not for the first time, some steps, this time I decide to test them with my feet – they are firm and real.
The old oak stump sings an aria to the overgrown steps