Walking for sanity
My walks have been close to home over the last few weeks, familiar paths, no great mountains scaled. Just moments of quiet amongst the sparkle and noise of a modern Christmas. I took photos with my phone, filling my camera reel with snaps of red hawthorn berries and the ever verdant ivy, twining and greening my local woods. But also hazel catkins, surely early this year? Slowly I'm learning to identify trees, painstakingly learning knowledge that my Wiltshire-born grandfather took for granted. He tried his best to pass things on, but I was busy not listening as a small child, too keen to climb a tree or investigate a puddle with my wellies. He was too impossibly old for me then, a thatch of white hair atop a long-legged body, using his walking stick to lean on but also to hook down a choice piece of holly. I am grateful for the cold clear sunny days of this midwinter. I feel grumpy that our current calendar jumps us from Christmas, our most recent version of a midwinter celebration...