"Did you paint this?"

 Saturday 18th October 2025

This morning, just after nine, as Mum and I were preparing breakfast ready for Dad to come back in from feeding round, she suddenly said, “Who’s that?”

I followed her gaze through the window, out into the yard, where a man was standing looking a little unsure of himself. Straight away I recognised him as the farmer I’d pulled out of the ditch a few weeks back.

Then I remembered Eric mentioning a few days later that someone called Clint had been looking for me, and I’d wondered at the time if that might have been the same man. But as I hadn’t heard anything since, it had slipped from my mind—until now.

“Oh, it’s the man I helped out of the ditch that day. I think his name might be Clint,” I said to Mum, rushing for the dairy door to make sure I caught him before he disappeared again.

“Sorry, love, I hope I haven’t disturbed anyone,” he said as soon as he spotted me approaching from the side of the house.

I wasn’t sure why he needed to apologise—perhaps I looked as though I’d just fallen out of bed—so I told him it was no trouble, that I’d been up a while helping Mum with breakfast.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he went on, “but I wanted to do something to thank you for getting me out of that mess. I’d have been in right bother with Tony if you hadn’t helped me.”

I wasn’t sure who Tony was—maybe his boss—but before I could ask, he held out a white plastic bag for me to take.

“It’s not much,” he said with a hint of embarrassment, “I hope you like it. It’s probably a bit naff, really.”

Curious now, I opened the bag and discovered a framed picture. Inside was what looked to be a hand-painted image of a Massey Ferguson—just like mine.

"Did you paint this?" He confirmed that he did, adding that he was just learning so it wasn't very good.

I’m completely hopeless at art, and no better as a judge of it either, but the thought behind that picture, and the subject of it, made it the best picture I’d ever seen. My first instinct was to give him a hug, but I thought he might find that a bit much, so I thanked him as warmly as I dared without getting carried away.

Dad arrived just then, looking puzzled about who the man was and why I was so excited. I held up the picture for him to see, ready to say, “Look what Clint did for helping him out of the ditch!” But I stopped myself and instead asked if he really was the Clint Eric had mentioned. He confirmed it was, explaining that the reason for the delay in returning was that he’d been away on holiday in Corfu.

That was about it really. Dad asked a few questions—how he’d managed to drive into a ditch, that sort of thing—and offered him a cup of tea. Clint declined, saying he needed to take his mum shopping. It seems he lives with her in the village, just the two of them.

The rest of the day I spent mostly with Mum. We baked cookies and a lemon drizzle cake. After lunch I took a few of the cookies to Rob’s, where we spent a couple of hours putting the world to rights. It’s too big a job to manage in two hours, so we gave up in the end and stuck to tea and cookies instead. I’m actually starting to think I’m getting quite good at baking—they really were very tasty.

As evening settled, the light faded quickly, and the chill of autumn crept in around the windows. The days are drawing in earlier now, and the nights are beginning to carry that crisp edge that hints at winter’s approach. Mum suggested we have a little treat before turning in—a slice each of the lemon drizzle cake. Dad, naturally, couldn’t resist teasing; he cut two neat pieces for Mum and me, then slid the rest of the cake toward his own plate with a grin. I chased him off back to the sitting room before cutting him a normal-sized piece like ours. We ended up laughing over it, the three of us gathered close in the warm sitting room, the lamplight soft and golden, the air still scented with lemon and sugar.

As I write this now, ready for my bed, the house is quiet and the night has settled deep outside. There’s a comfort in knowing how the seasons turn, bringing us back indoors together as the evenings grow cold. It feels like the year is gently folding itself around us, and for tonight at least, all feels safe and warm at home.