The Long Lane With The Noisy Dogs

I wasn't going to share this memory, but, well, today is Lisa's birthday.

Once, when Lisa and I were visiting my parents, perhaps some time in the very late 90s, Lisa decided it would be good to make love surrounded by nature. It was something that, she said, she'd always wanted to do and here we were, countryside all around us. We borrowed my parents' car.

I found this long lane that I knew of. A school friend once lived there. I addressed a letter to 'Kirsty, the girl who lives in the house on the long, long lane, with the noisy dogs, B-, Cambridgeshire' and it only took two days to reach her. I drove directly to the end of the road, far past the house with the noisy dogs, and from there we left the car and hiked though fields.

We found a spot that was entirely secluded, it was especially important to Lisa that it be so. We were sheltered, from the direction that we had walked, by bushes and behind us a rising slope blocked any line of sight.

But it turned out that the ridge supported a track and while we were making love a train slowly passed us by, not twenty metres away. We were completely exposed to the gaze of the bored passengers staring out at the boring, flat Cambridgeshire countryside. We waved to the people.