A Cow from the Back of Beyond

The area around Hadrian’s Wall, the liminal borderland at the edges of the map of ancient England, of the extensive Roman Empire, did not contain the monsters drawn into the farthest reaches of explorers’ maps—only this amiable cow, and other affable creatures.

I would love to be wandering there today, enjoying the greenery and light rain and a prawn sandwich—or egg and cress.

Instead I am lazing here, reading a new mystery in the company of the vicar (or canon, actually) of Grantchester.  The toasted brown hills of California in the summer are far indeed from the thirty shades of green that paint the English landscape, and the calling of the sheep one to another reaches me only faintly, in my “mind’s ear.”

image:  Christie B. Cochrell, Ancient British Cow