Where this morning? High up on the topmost point of the island head, with the wind sweeping in from the sea, and the early white sun blindingly brilliant in its dappled reflection across Newport bay. The cornfields echo the sea’s ceaseless motion, over in front, sloping down to the farm; the rising and surging of black birds feeding on the barley being the only sign of animal movement. The Hereford herd is down there too, and the sows, but they are static and mostly lying basking in the cool sunny morning. The sheep have all filed past, vacating the East Cliff field for riper pastures, and now I am the sole occupant of this majestic rocky out-thrust.
The gun in my lap will soon thunder its warning into the windy air, and its explosion will rush on the gust over the headland, the cloud of birds wheeling terrified and plaintively calling.
Before me the thistle is in bloom, its magenta-purple top-knots catching the colour-filling sunlight: a band of richness in the foreground against a strip-pattern of faintly brown meadows, white corn and sap-green pastureland. Goodness seeps in from the hissing sea, is picked up by the herring-gull’s wings and dropped in great bunches over this enveloping island.