It’s 7am on the Sunday of Mayday weekend and I’m up and out with my ever faithful hound Stella. The sun is shining, shadows are long because the sun is still low in the eastern sky
Various birdsong fills the air with only the crunch of my footfall disturbing an otherwise peaceful scene.
A pigeons call breaks through the birdsong and apart from the odd fallen or dead tree everything is green, multiple shades of green offset by a virtually cloudless blue sky.
My eyes pick out the oaks and the odd pinetree but I’ve little knowledge if the identities of most and my knowledge of the birdsong is equally vague.
A conker (horse chestnut) tree laden with flowers pricks memories of me with my grandad lobbing a stick at the freshest conkers taking them home and stringing them to play conkers the following day. But then health and safety has outlawed that or made it so bogged down in safety that kids can’t play the game unsupervised.
A distant inquisitive fox checks Stella and I out and obviously considers us a threat as it turns and runs, either we’re nowhere near it’s set or it’s leading us off,
A new border of blue flowerheads this time not blue bell but apparently a flowering nettle.
Electricity pylons now break my perfect view, a mechanized reminder that these Roman woods are living a modern existence and that I am only minutes away from the civilization of Colchester or as the Romans knew it Camolodunum.
The pylons are past us, and we veer right along a naturally made tunnel of trees interwoven.
Looking up a few passenger liners vapour trails reminder further of the modern times, now two magpie scatter as stella hurdles toward them and she gives me that look as if to say that’s not fair or is this a hunt or just a pointless ramble.
Now a rabbit scarpers for equal reason into the hedgerow, the tunnel breaks, stella has the scent of something, looking at me as if to say come on let’s go after it.
A new birdsong, sounding like a kids laser gun, must be close as it dominates the landscape.
If my mother in law or my partner Louise were with me now I’m sire they’d identify all or most of the flora and fauna but sadly neither are, as Lou has ailments that limit her walking and my mother in law is 20 miles away and would have equal problems with the distance.
Suddenly I notice my mind has disengaged and is wondering emotionally I ‘re engage my mind picking up this post, continuing to write, I’ve been actively engaging my mind a lot lately from the guidance if Emma Triplets book Stepping out of the clouds instead of being depressed by the news on the radio I’m listening to more and more audio books.
My walk draws near to a close as we pass Rockys home. Rocky is a golden retriever and stella one true friend who stella will always look out for.
fromhelltoeternity 