It was the cloud formations that inspired the idea of the horse trek.

The day after Polly's arrival, I took my breakfast at Thomas and Martha's cottage following my usual walk. Polly appeared younger and fresher after a night in Martha's spare room, overlooking the river and mountains beyond. The country air has always that effect on her. Each visit I ask her why she doesn't move out here permanently, but she just laughs and says something along the lines of: "If you're proposing marriage, Digory, the answer's No. We'd never get on if I didn't leave you alone for six months in between visits."

Much as I hate to admit it, she may have something there. Besides, she doesn't much like the vicar in our little parish. She prefers the rousing fervour of that young Martyn chap. back at Westminster.

The breezes were crisp but playful that morning and laden with the delicate sent of apple and orange blossom, so Martha suggested we eat on the Verandah overlooking the orchard.
We had a jolly old reminisce together:

Polly recounted that escapade in the middle of the night when we picked fruit by moonlight and hoisted it up to her room on the second floor with a sheet from my bed. Thomas roared with laughter at that, and Martha did too. When she got her breath back she gave us a belated scolding for wrecking a perfectly good sheet.
She had attributed the mud to me sleeping with my boots on.

As if I would do such a thing.

That sparked off my story about using old Duke, to reach the highest branches in the orchard one day, when we were too indolent to fetch a ladder. He didn't seem to mind our weight on his broad back as he contentedly munched the apples we shared with him.

One thing led to another until one of us brought up that abandoned scheme we once had of the a pony trek.
Ah, I know what it did it.

I was gazing at an interesting formation of cumulus congestus with pilei forming at each end while Polly told Martha about that incident in the well shaft. I noticed that the base cloud had shifted revealing some cirrus uncinus high in the stratosphere above it. It gave me the distinct impression of a winged horse -which of course put me in mind of our journey on Fledge all those years ago.
I pointed it out to Polly, who recognised the form at once. She had to concoct an explanation based on a novel about a flying horse we had shared as youngsters, because Martha demanded to know how we knew what a flying horse looked like.
Martha never had the benefit of a classical education.

She retired with the dishes, and Thomas left to meet the compost truck.

Then I brought up the idea of renewing that old trek plan: Mother was no longer around to oppose the scheme and, although the presence of the Pilei was indicative of bad weather, that would give us the 3-4days we needed to sort out the details.

Polly immediately agreed, eyes dancing with some of that gleam of delight she exuded on her first visit to the manor all those years ago.
"It won't be quite so dangerous this time." I said, "I intend to take more for meals than a bag of toffees."

Martha was quite disapproving when she returned with my pipe and tobacco pouch.
"At your age?" was her first reaction, followed closely by:

"I hope you don't expect Thomas to chaperone you. His back will not cope with sleeping on the hard ground."
Of course neither would ours any longer which poured the icy contents of the bucket of reality to douse our enthusiasm.

But objections which might have swamped a pair of twelve year olds, became a raft, with which to ride over the cold water in comfort and ease, for a determined pair, entering into their seventh decade of life.

We spent the rest of the day making lists and ordering supplies over my newly installed telephone.

A wonderful technological device that is. We only had to make one trip into town to withdraw money from the bank and collect the gear, rather than sending Thomas on half a dozen potentially fruitless excursions. If the operator was curious abut why I wanted the sail-maker, the glass merchant and the blacksmith one after another, then she kept her curiosity to herself.

My projection of four days was slightly out. It took five, due to the difficulty in finding a camp stretcher large enough to fit Polly's preferred mattress. Thomas was obliged to adapt one by means of an extension. He didn't grumble about it however, for he was relieved of Chaperone duty by the eagerness of Charlie and his young bride, Sabina, to accompany us. After we set out, Charlie drove the cart with our supplies, and set up camp at the first site I had selected. That plan meant that each day we traveled light and had a hot meal waiting for us when we arrived.

Very agreeable meals they were too. I had Sabina promoted to head cook soon after that trip. Martha has enough to do just overseeing the house and staff. She should have had help long ago if I had noticed how tired she was each evening. I am indebted to Polly for enlightening me on that matter.

The trek was invigorating.

I felt the years slipping away, being in the saddle again: until of course we stopped for the night, when I felt them piling back on again. How my muscles ached that first night and the following morning. I have taken care to ride out at least once a week since then to keep my fitness up.

I am glad I took the trouble to arrange those little surprises along the way. I am afraid Charlie thinks me quite eccentric after enlisting his assistance to tie all those Walker's toffees onto that elder sapling on the first night. Polly thought I was teasing, when I winked at her and planted one at it's base the night before.
Her face the next morning was worth the trouble. I had been waiting in the bushes for twenty minutes for her to emerge once I heard her stirring inside the girls tent. She knew I was there because the second thing she saw after the toffees was a tell tail smoke ring rising from where I stood, chuckling at her.

They don't make toffees like they used to, those ones got hopelessly gummed up in my dentures and neither of us felt like feasting on them for breakfast while the aroma of Sabina's sausages -cooked with damper over the open fire- was teasing our senses. My mouth waters now at the memory of that meal...

"Ah, Sabina, I didn't hear you enter."
The Professor stood quickly and removed his pipe and tobacco pouch from the side table to the mantle piece.

"Sausages for breakfast eh? I was just thinking about the first occasion I had to sample your sausages. I suppose it must have been the smells wafting upstairs.

Allow me?"

He took the empty tray from her and placed it near the door while Sabina poured his tea from the small white teapot, painted with roses, which he always used. It had been part of a set his Father brought home from India: commissioned to a local potter there. The shaping reflected it's exotic heritage, but the pink roses were just like the ones which grew in abundance in the manor gardens.

Professor Kirke, for this was the tall gentleman's name, settled back into the chair and ate with an appetite enhanced by the memory of that other meal in the woods on the manor estate..
Wiping his mouth and fingers neatly on the linen napkin provided, he settled back into the chair with his tea cup and saucer and renewed his contemplation of the now, dying embers.

Should rouse himself and place another log on them?
No, those coals would suffice.

Besides, he was lost in another memory.

It is my pleasure to acknowledge here the two people who inspired this story.

Firstly, my friend and fellow ACA Forum-ite -Delia Anole, who brain-stormed with me about what to do with Ariel's Story idea. That was Fun Delia! We should do it again some time.

And secondly, the Wonderfully talented Acacia59601 who wrote my favourite Narnia fanfic of all time: The Guardian. Not only did she inspire me to take this project on, but she kindly allowed me to lean on her ideas of what Polly and Digory would have been like in our world years later and the connections between Prof. Kirke and the Pevinsie family.
I suggest that, after you've reviewed this, *hopeful smile* you flip over to The Guardian and treat yourself.
WARNING: you will need tissues!