The sky is intense blue. The sun is warm on my back. I spin along
on my bike, gulping freedom in draughts. The rutted dirt track snakes away from
me, grasses high and dry on either side. A fellow cyclist passes, smiling, the
Médecin Sans Frontières logo, so familiar in Bunia, bold across his T-shirt. In
the corner of my eye, an antelope emerges from the undergrowth...
My stoney skid brings me up short. Where have I been? Where
am I now? For a moment, my worlds have merged and Richmond Park is African
savannah. Too often the worlds are sharply separate, no danger of merger. But strong
sun and rutted roads evoke a myriad African associations. My mind conjures up a
whole context, half a life, to fit them. For a moment, I am back on a kinder
continent. Then my vision adjusts and the deer comes into focus. I breathe deep
and remember: sometimes the sun blesses England, too, and Richmond Park had my
heart before Africa ever stole it.
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