Hello again everybody on this, the first post of the new year! This weeks short story is a little different to my usual ones, it is far more upbeat, or at least it is not downbeat! I think I will share a lot more of these more light hearted stories over the next few months. Some of them may even cross the boundary to comedy! remember you can listen to the audio versions on the audio page or go straight to iTunes by Clicking Here!

But there is no need to dither any longer here we go:

A Gap In The Hedge

By Daniel .M. Brown

He walked along the country lane, it was a chilly morning, the ragged patchwork or tarmac that apparently passed as a road round these parts was further patched with ice. A Small amount of snow lingered in some of the more sheltered bends in the road. He looked down to his watch to check the time, ten past eight in the morning.

Good, he thought, he was making excellent time. He was only off to a local village to see his friend but he still had a certain urgency about him. He wanted to get indoors out of the reach of the chilly morning air. The cold was getting right up his back while he fumbled about trying to tighten up the bottom of his coat. His gloves hampered him though and a flash of extreme irritation crossed his thoughts as he failed to get a grip of the string. He let it go, a cold back it would have to be. Not the end of the world.

Suddenly a rabbit hopped out from the hedgerow, it gave him a fright and he smiled as he felt his heart pounding in his chest due to such a small silly thing. The rabbit ran along the road for a few seconds before dodging into the neighbouring field through a gap in the hedge. As the walker closed in on the opening he saw that it was a gateway, the gate had long been unusable by the looks of it. Covered in rust with tatty old ropes on either side tethering it to the gateposts, one of which was an old tree stump.

He looked at the gate, then beyond it into the field. The grass was covered in frost, a field of subdued green, slightly tinted with a warm orange from the first rays of light. He followed the long morning shadows down the field to the trees at the far end through which the sun shone low in the sky. Looking further than the tree’s he realised that he had travelled further up hill than he expected as the flat fields and the small hills spread out for miles before him. A fine mist hung over the far off fields and round the bases of the hills, giving them an appearance of desert islands just keeping themselves out of the sea.

This was the type of moment that he cherished. Real peace. He had been walking for about three miles, had not seen a single person or even heard a noise other than his own footsteps and the sounds of nature and now he could see only the morning.

The sun rose, the sun set, and that’s all there was to know.

Thanks for reading/listening,

see you again soon,

until then as always

look after yourself

and have fun,

dan