A swathe of green sits between her and the water, dotted with small flowers: blue, yellow, purple, white. The lap of the water mingles with the soft susurration in the stand of trees next to the cottage. High above, the wisping clouds threaten nothing but shade and the coolness that comes from an absence of sunshine.

  Her eye drifts – as it ever does, when she stands in the shelter of the lychgate, sipping from her steaming cup – to the green hills that lie over the glittering water. Misty with distance, tantalisingly just out of reach, she – as she ever does – looks upon their mystery and wonders. Watches the way the shifting clouds reveal billows of gold-tipped gorse; imagines the secret paths that wend along that verdant shore – and sighs.

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  Above, the screeching gulls wheel and flit untethered, and she watches them with a green eye. She watches the dash of handsome boats over the scudding waves, thither and from those far fields – all with a green eye.

  And she sighs; swallowing down the last of the black tea, bitter and harsh. Picks up her pinny as if it's weighted with lead, ties the strings with the gravity of a gaoler. An embittered breath leaves her last of all, fogging in the morning air, drifting with a yearning look, over to those misty hills across the water, and away.