Spring time ramble

 

Here comes the sun, and I say, it's all right. - The Beatles

Familiar footpaths

It seems to me, that spring is here. At least, the storms of winter have been quickly forgotten, with the sun shining and coaxing forth blossoms. This is the time of year for blooming flowers and buzzing bees. My favourite way of embracing the spring sun is to take myself off on the footpaths. And so, yesterday, I did just that, with my ears and eyes wide open. But not before stopping in the garden a while, to check on the birdfeeders and the plant life there, where the oxeye daisies especially seem greener and taller by the day. I gave the plants some water, hoping that quenched thirst and sunshine might expedite flowering, but knowing that nature needs time to achieve its beauty, to do what it needs to do. And so, with my boots on my feet and a cloudless sky overhead, I headed off for familiar footpaths. I wanted out of the town where I live, and more rural, countryside surroundings.

This new season is the season of life and abundance. Butterflies, bees, and birds were all out and on the wing as I walked through their world, flitting and fluttering above and about me. A brimstone butterfly, or something very like a brimstone, and I followed the same path for a while. (The pretty yellow-winged butterfly flew constantly beside the path, over and about the green grass and hedgerows, was never at rest, which made certain identification difficult.) So, as people in cars went wherever they were going, I was lost in the nature. Not for the first time, I wondered how other people on the path could resist looking up into the branches of trees we walked beneath. With the bird calls, the songs, and all that fascinating life that was happening up there.

Towards the end of my walk, I stopped beside the river, in a small village meadow; Oakley, Bedfordshire. The river was running eastward, and the sun was low in the sky, to my right. On the horizon, the sky was yellow-orange, but higher it was darkening blues and purples, not a cloud to be seen. I sat at a picnic table, made of some kind of plastic, but intended to look like wood, at least from a distance. About me was grass, the running river, and cooling evening air. Behind me, a road which took drivers over a small bridge, and which brought the sound of passing cars to my ears, though my eyes were towards the river. It was the golden hour, and people were turning homeward from a day's work, and the birds were singing their last songs for the day. I heard tits, a robin, blackbirds, and, a little further off, something corvid. The flap and clap of a woodpigeon's wings overhead, as it rose and then glided away. With sore legs, and poetry in my head, I turned my steps homeward, a hot shower and a cold beer on my mind.

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