Not playing out

We haven’t been going up the lane much recently so it was a nice surprise when the top field was free of sheep. The wind hadn’t died down yet and the long grass was swaying about all over. I dispatched Rab off into it, gallivanting down the hill after her ball. It’s warm, so she curtails her joy-loops and settles down about fifty yards away, I smile over at her stupid head, poked up above the long grass, tongue flopped out in the wind all daft. I decide to sit down too, on the path where the grass is a bit shorter, and I watch the wildflowers tip this way then that in the breeze. Occasionally she feels ready for another chase and drops her ball, just out of reach so I have to get up. I tell her firmly she’s getting trained one of these days. After a few of these ups and downs I hear a guttural scream which sounds so odd I wonder if it’s some kind of machine, or maybe even a cow in distress, but then the shock subsides and the sound takes form:

“OOOIIIII, it’s not a bloody playground”

I’m stood looking at where it’s coming from - the big detached farm house across the next field - and then finally decipher a guy stood on his wall. Blimey what to do? I shout back as loud as I can:

“I can’t hear you” cupping my ears in case he’s not sure.

This is mainly to buy time, find a reaction that respects both my pride and my safety but also it’s quite funny, asking him to shout louder given how enormous his first attempt was. But he tries, and hell, he succeeds.

“I said it’s not a bloody playground, clear off”

This time I respond immediately “I never said it was”

He doesn’t seem to hear, or I’m not giving him chance, but I shout again “What is it, is it not a footpath?”

“YES! It is. Not a playground. Now CLEAR.OFF.” He’s motioning now back the way I’d come

I’m a bit done-in by this sudden confrontation, I was just starting to loosen-off from a day of malfunctioning spreadsheets and really didn’t need any of this. So it’s in this state, on a beautiful evening amongst the wildflowers that I shout back over the wall, almost pleading:

 “I’M NOT PLAYING”

Well fuck me. Look at us, bellowing back-and-forth across a field as the world spins on all around us, spring in full flow and a million birds singing their evening songs. Its two angry men filling the air tonight though, crying inside about territory and rules, masculinity raining down and clogging everything like frogspawn. But for it to finish on that broken holla of every little boy that ever got upset, that final act of defiance. “I’m not playing”. Well that’s unwritable.

Rab and I take our ball home and turn on Springwatch instead. I hope we’re not on there tomorrow, “Look at these two male pipits disputing territory, very common this time of year when headspace is in such short supply”.