Sunday Lunch in the Country

The June sun shone from a cloudless sky. The garden was full of flowers: roses and clematis tumbling over old brick walls, lavender and thrift edging the terrace from which velvety lawns stretched away into the shimmering distance. Birds sang from the trees, and the dogs lay supine in the shade of our chairs. Earlier we had dug tiny new potatoes from the earth and picked young spinach and the first broad beans. Now sitting in the shade of a large umbrella, we ate them with a perfectly pink roast rack of lamb and a bottle of claret. There was salad, a ripe Somerset Brie and thick clotted cream to go with the strawberries, also picked within the last hour. Summer in the English countryside! When it is good, it is very good.