Yesterday we ran away after school. It was damp and cool and the sky was too big to let us through the front door, so we didn’t try. We turned on our heels, school shoes still on, and headed off. Little feet raced ahead, choosing paths we had not followed before.

We dawdled by a rust-coloured stream where the sound of birdsong and gurgling water held us close. We closed our eyes and waited— in patches of tight sound slips in time can happen, if you are still. Scuffed black shoes squelched along the edges of the water, and I vaguely wondered whether I could get them dried before another school day.

On the other side of the gardened valley the beanstalk child struck out along a new path. It arced upwards, over the hedge, over the hill, up to the sky. We pushed through bare blackthorn and shining brambles, snagging tights and fingers. The leaves smelt of blackberries.

We were confronted by the rich almost black mud of newly harrowed fields rolling down to the cliff’s edge. We wobbled along the edges, vainly trying to keep school shoes clean. I wondered, as the beanstalk ran ahead searching for a stile, whether they should be doing homework (I knew I should).

Down to the path along the land’s edge, only not so easy as expected. Little bodies skittered ahead and along. Somewhere we had lost the path and now we had to navigate a string of barbed wire that separated us from the oh-so-close coast path below us. I paused to study a speckled egg tucked alongside some fresh sprouting heather; it looked like a skylark’s but I was not sure, it seemed peculiarly alone. It is also seemed early for larks but I told the little feet to take care all the same.

Barbed wire successfully avoided, we turned homeward along the cliff path. The sky held a dark canopy of rain just beyond us. I realised I was not even wearing a raincoat… and what about the school shoes? But still, we did not rush. We discussed who had found the tastiest gorse bush and paused several times to ‘help’ an unsuspecting snail get to where we hoped it was going. The smallest crouched to sniff the violets and I pointed out the white stars of the stitchwort lacing through the hedgerows. The beanstalk ran ahead keeping one eye on the sea, determined that he had seen a dolphin.

As we curved over the headland a raven watched us, unmoving and disinterested, from a spine of granite. The littlest pointed to a chough riding the wind below us. We were back in the garden valley, the red bracken on the other side rippling like Van Gogh’s dreams. We noticed the colours that the fading light made brighter— the copper on the underside of the scots pine needles, the pink glow of an elm’s bare limbs.

We frightened the trolls under each of the bridges as we made our way back to civilisation. The rain had not caught us and little legs had not faltered once. There was nothing to hurry for, so we rested and watched for hares.

The school shoes didn’t dry in time for school. They went in trainers today.