Cold rain unexpectedly greets the start of my walk and I regret not having a hat. The grey today is wearing for some reason. It feels like the plants are burdened, giving up their urge to greet spring. Yet when I return home the clouds have whitened and hints of blue sky bring hope again. No matter what the birds still sing. I realise the plants are not the ones with a burden, it is my post-pain flare drug-induced fatigue that feels the giving up. The plants merely reflect back to me my own experience. They are too busy being themselves to care.
First walk since last Wednesday. It’s good to be out amongst the trees on grassy leaf-laden paths. The day is grey and the wind is cold but the freshness fills me with renewed life. Much as I love and appreciate staying curled up in a warm and comfortable home, getting out for a walk is good.
I see two muntjac, separately, bouncing. The white of their upturned tails standing out amongst the dulled brown of a winter wood. They move as if on pogo sticks or springs, and of course I think of Bambi.
I am doing a lot of thinking about freedom versus danger as I observe my new hamster friend every evening trying to find a way out of the safe free roam area I set up. If I could I would let her have the run of the house and the garden but of course it’s not safe. The glass tank I have for her is big, bigger than the minimum recommended now, but still it doesn’t feel big enough. What size of enclosure would? I wonder what it is about humans that makes us want to squeeze out the life spirit of other creatures for our own enjoyment. To put them in cages too small for their needs. I just want Rogue to be happy within the constraints we have. Surely that is the best thing, to bring happiness to another. I hope that one day all the Rogues will have been adopted, no more breeders, and no more beautiful spirited souls condemned to live their lives in cages for human entertainment.
Champneys Henlow Grange. Here for a spa day close to home. A mini-holiday. Quiet, peace and voices and music. Snowdrop walk with daffodil interrupters. White egret wading, flying, a puff of snow. Canada geese, a pair of, lunching on the lawn. Ducks, bottoms up. Coot. Squirrels bouncing with elongated strides. Muntjac startled, runs away. A drunken topiarist’s asymmetrical patterns, vases, who knows what. Done on the cheap perhaps by a man on a one night stand.
Lady blackbird arrives on the patio in front of me as I sit the other side of the French doors to meditate. She looks around but does not seem to notice me and hops to the water tray. Her body is round and full.
As I write a coal tit lands on that same try for a sip of water. Black head, white flash, yellow and grey-ish body. Delicate and light. I realise that I rarely see birds that look unwell or injured.
I look up and catch a squirrel landing on Ash, making their way to the trunk to sit and eat. Robins flit just below, perhaps hoping to join in. Then squirrel climbs head first down into our garden. It looks as if whatever was left of the snack is being buried in the lawn, or no, I think maybe squirrel is finding more snacks to eat. Perhaps snacks buried from another time. There is definitely digging and eating going on.
Snowdrops dropping over the side of the bank. A moat from medieval times that runs with mud and sticks and fallen leaves. A cascading waterfall of white drops bringing life to a brown edge. Skiing through trees. Flowing, yet still.
3 geese (Images of) tumbling clowns fly through my head
On the reservoir walk this morning three geese flew overhead, honking all the way. I wondered where the rest of the flock was. Every time I hear geese I think of clowns in big baggy trousers at the circus with their honking horns.
Thick cold mist but my need for a walk is not going to be put off by an uninviting day.
As I enter the wood I spot on the severed tree trunks rings of peppermint lichen with frilly silver edges. One, in the photo, looks like they are the adornment around a portal, a dark door to another world. I imagine myself shrinking to fit through and think of white stags and unicorns standing amongst trees. Instead I carry on last into a woodland that has been severely thinned these past few months and remember what I read in The Hidden Life of Trees* last night. The effect of the loss of community members on trees. Has the Forestry Commission read this book?
Preparing for my new adoptive friend’s arrival this morning and the start of a new relationship and way of being.
Watching the white doves swooping in figures of eight across the bright blue sky. I notice one not so white, a grey pigeon! I wonder if they’ve accepted the pigeon and the pigeon them, or whether they do not realise. Either way there looks to be no issue with this interloper. They all move in their usual graceful curves until finally they come to rest on the Church Hall roof on the road behind.
And Then There Were Stories 