We’ve been walking new paths since the start of lockdown as our permitted outdoor exercise. To start with there were few leaves on the trees, and now as the weeks have gone by the countryside looks different with green everywhere. The bluebells have mostly gone, to be replaced first by wild garlic and dandelions, and now by buttercups and dandelion clocks.
I wish I could share the birdsong with you – that has been a joyful accompaniment to our regular walking.
Those who are most observant will also notice the fluffy trace of an aeroplane trail. That’s new too. It has been so peaceful but now if we hear and aircraft we stop and look up as it is such an infrequent event.
The beauty of the changing scenery is that even paths that have become familiar look new and different when clothed in green leaves, nettles, brambles and other changes that nature continues to develop. The new lambs are no longer so small and the bleating is not quite so high pitched and anxious sounding.
For me the countryside looks the way I imagine it was when I was small and was taken, sometimes reluctantly, on walks with my family. The nostalgia is enjoyable even if the reasons behind it are sinister, unpleasant, and apparently not easily resolvable.
Roll on release from lockdown – at least, when it comes for those of us not working at Central Government level, where it doesn’t seem to apply in quite the same way.
Wouldn’t it be nice to think that lessons are learned, by those involved in making the laws, about how hard to is to adhere to them strictly when family or other vital life pressures apply.