Summertime Manta by Greg Walker

Piloting the Manta through England's green and pleasant land must rate as one of the most enjoyable pursuits during a long hot summer season. Watching the meandering country lane unravel its emerald green secrets as the Manta continues its majestic progress is a thrill.

Narrow humpback bridges, the occasional flooded ford and old railway crossings are all swept away with the inexorable surge of the Manta's huge horsepower.

Cows stand and gaze in mute amusement at the stealth of this intruder to their space, and moo their disapproval from the safety of lush pastures and tight hedgerows. Horses shy and gallop away, eyes wide and rolling with fright, awakened from their lazy sojourn and snort with anger and defiance as the Manta allows a wide berth around their flank.

Peering through the open sunroof one is greeted by a canopy of leafy green trees with the silvery shafts of sunlight glinting on the Manta's awesome and amazing shape. A cacophony of twittering birds swoop and fly across the Manta's trajectory, taunting as if to say, "Catch me if you can."

Approaching a farm, a crazy dog runs pell mell for the Manta, perhaps intent on savaging the enormous 195/60x14 boots.

As we continue to thunder on to who knows where, trailing a cyclonical plume of dust in our wake, the friendly drone of a light aeroplane meandering about the cloudless sunlit sky comes into view, then dips and vanishes behind a copse of trees. Presently, a shimmering shape is spied far away, could it be a mirage? As we draw ever closer we discover a huge glittering expanse of water, a haven to all forms of wildlife, where birds wheel and soar on rising thermals about the warm summer sky.

Shortly, a country pub sails into view and the Manta, as if guided by some divine and greater force, changes smoothly down and comes to rest outside this peaceful oasis whereupon a variety of colourful Mantas converge and join as one in the common cause of Manta rhetoric.

Greg Walker, (May '95)

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