Sunshine Walk

It is ages since I set off for a walk - I've thought about it, but then it hasn't happened - too cold, too much snow, too much to do, after I've ... and so on!  A few rays of sunshine did the trick.

What a lovely time - the beginning was marked out for me by many previous feet - I love the twisty tree roots exposed by the wear and step over them carefully.

There's further evidence of others having come this way too.  Though it was sunny, there was a biting wind and it flurried and swept at the captured wool, teasing the tufts.

I can tell which flock grazed here and to which farmer they belong by the red wool caught.

And evidence of another squeezing under the barbed wire fence.

Out into the open grassland, there are many small feet walking, underground.

I move to the field edge, to the shelter of the hedgerow.  My eyes and nose are streaming from the stinging, icy wind and my cheeks and ears burn.

A skin like this is good protection.  It offers me respite.

How beautiful wood is, alive or decaying.  Twists and knots, whirls and marks of growth, wounds and wonders of shape.

I've written another post about the woodiness on my walk.

The hedge petered out and I was left with an old fence.

It got very boggy and I was brought to my senses by the upflight, from only a foot away, of a curlew - which must have been feeding in the soft, wet ground - proddling with its beak in the easy going soil.  Then moments later another, its mate?  How I wished I could be less threatening in the landscape and to have spotted them before I caused alarm.  Along the way I scattered a number of rabbits too, and pheasants.

The sight of an old hen-house signals I'm close to the overgrown path back home.

Quite the most wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

I glance back at the lovely time I've had and promise it I'll be back very soon.