Currents -GC

I follow the path past fields dotted with dandelions, into a grove of thin black trunks, turn off down to the river, gold-lit and dark currents; a sign on a gate warning DANGER, RAPID CHANGES TO WATER FLOW. Further on a lichened-covered cairn, the early light green with spring. I climb ragged through a fence, sit on the river-bank amongst purple flowers, stems bending under cloud-headed thistles, bright yellow-petalled weeds, warming sun, the stillness of the sprawling house across the river. I set off again and pick up a companion on the way. Together we cross a bridge, at first ugly, then graceful when we turn to see girders curve gently across the river, a church spire with its cross high against the inconstant sky tending over supplicating warehouses of brick and glass.

The trick is knowing where to rest; a small pub, low ceiling with blackened beams, walls filled with pictures of coastal birds, a model of the Princess Anne, sunk with 700 drowned. A local newspaper on the counter headlining BED DELIVERED – UP LADDER. We sit away from the single slot machine and my new friend’s eyes fill with tears. “I used to come here as a boy,” he says and we lift our pints, drink a toast to the past and look down at the Thames emptying, changing tide revealing grey mud and rocks, geese settling for the evening on the pontoon.