from all the crazed hate in the world news I volunteered to help dig and clear along the borders of the floodfields by the Cherwell. I pushed a barrow and picked up cuttings in the sunshine, nabbed some apples from the communal trees and tried not to disturb the person sleeping in the tent down the track. Some cows saw me and packed over the marsh, maybe they thought I had some feed or I’d share out the apples? Do cows eat them, I’ve only tried them on horses? They ganged up along the wire, eyes gazing depthless until a strange, gold-brown cow parted them and looked me over, not a finger away. The light was low in the sky and dazzling and just for a moment the cow’s swirl seemed gold as the fleece in my imaginings – would a wild animal be even bolder, brighter, more striking? Here the stories grow, here in the lonely marshes when we’ve come to hide from the problems out of our reach, out of our reckoning. I went back to my work and then biked for home, baked some apple muffins to chomp with my pre-dusk coffee.