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dazzled on the asphalt, shuffling along the avenue, weighing up the day’s pathways and potential, silently revelling in the what-may-come.

and I’m out in the drizzle, stamping the frost-spike sidelines. But it’s good to be under the sky, great billows of cloud hung across the straw fields and decking the blue out to the Chilterns ridge. Nature rampant and showing off. Everything still to play for.

you’ll find refuge from the floods in the tottering Punter. I’d stop by when it was known as the Waterman’s Arms and the tapster almost growled when pestered for a pint. Or push on along the broadening river, come alive to its mysterious magnificence, searching for Riverman moored up in the reeds.

I’d get out to Venice to gaze at Pollock’s Mural, before the show closes in November. But I can’t see an alignment and I’ve other business that harries the idea from my mind. I might have to content myself with the sweeps and circles I spy in the rain.

outside Hardys, pear drops to rival palm trees. Back to the desk for another stab at it before the winter storms blow in.

as they grip the railing. Hush at the sight of the plain below, hush in fear of rousing the rippling black-sack bee colonies that hang in the wind hide.

step into the mouth of the lion.

at the edge of the ancient tank. He guards the waterline. Bellows and roars from the jungle behind me. I know when to retreat, where to go to cool off with a Lion Stout. I have my own bush trails to stamp before the sun gilds the trees.

he did visit Ravello, walk the belvedere terrace and stare out at the divine coast. He hiked up from his Amalfi rest camp, a switchback retreat towards the end of the volume I’m reading. There’s even a faded pic of the terrace and what looks to be the same iron curl of railing where I leaned out a week ago. Catching up with the story as it unfolds, out on a tropic balcony now, four thousand miles from the yellow stone and marble of Ravello. And I almost left this book behind unfinished, baggage overloaded and the feeling it should find a new reader to follow its footsteps through Italy. I might never have known Spike made it. Sweet is chance.

On the Good Life under these trees. He must have been a disciplined scribe, to turn away from azure sky-gazing and the silky lure of the pool.