Strawberries and Wine Garden Party

It is a curious thing, but the Strawberries and Wine event in the Rectory garden is as you would imagine it to be. You step through the door from the crescent in Sandford Close at any time in the proceedings and are effortlessly part of the conversation. If you are unable to attend, it is good to know that people are getting together in that beautiful place. What appears to adult eyes to be the casual chaos of children playing is, in fact, a rolling series of celebratory improvisations, which is as it should be. The soundtrack is familiar, but never entirely the same. Children playing somehow facilitates grown-ups talking to each other, and who isn’t grateful to see the same sun that ripened the strawberries and the gapes lingering in the branches of what I think is a Japanese Hemlock. The evening sun shone. The wine and strawberries slowly disappeared, the raffle was run, people came and went with ease. You will gather this is not a report of what happened, who was there, or what was said. Rather, it is a note to mark the continuity that distinguishes this cheerful occasion. Philip Davison