A Fine Summer's Day

Here's how to get a memorable experience for nowt at the Cartford. First you must pick a bonny evening at the end of a fine summer's day. After your meal, around dusk, make your way onto the toll bridge and lean on the railings, facing downstream (whilst making sure that no part of your anatomy is obstructing the traffic.) A lustrous sunset will gild the water, throw Rawcliffe Hall woods into stark silhouette and briefly transform our modest little Wyre into something truly beautiful. Artists and photographers – even sober ones – have been known to swoon at the spectacle.Meanwhile, you might have noticed the swallows swooping in feeding flight. Now and then they dive at high speed to sip from the river. This is a technical marvel in itself. One millimetre of error would bring a swift and watery end, but it's an error they never seem to make.Back indoors and sipping that final glass, consider: if we had to do our drinking like that, swooping and sipping at speed, pubs would be transformed.For as long as I can remember, those swallows have been joined by the house martins that nested under the girders of the bridge. This year they haven't. Why? Locals mutter darkly that it's all down to the new 50 pence toll. Surely not.I could, of course, be mistaken (mistaken being the default condition for a chap with a wife and three daughters.) In case I am, the first person to spot a nesting house martin under the bridge this year may claim a pint from Patrick. I will gladly (well, fairly gladly) reimburse him later.