First butterfly…

First one of the year, found perched upon a yellow rape flower in the sunshine and as yet unrecognised by me. A Queen of Spain? A Copper?

I’m back to another summer when rape was mustard. A summer spent cutting large green lawns in large country houses, picnicking by railway lines, walking through the still summer air surrounded by them, dozen upon dozen like petals tossed by the cooling breeze.

I’d never seen so many butterflies before or since, so many you almost had to beat them off with flapping hands and laughter. Browns, Blues, Orange Tips, Whites, and my devil’s favourite sulphur yellow Brimstone. A summer kissed by butterflies. We lay in the soft grass waiting for the train that never ran on that line to arrive.

The girl, that boy, ham sandwiches and squash; counting butterflies by colour, laughing into the empty butterfly evening, holding hands as we walked the line where that train never did arrive.

My first butterfly.