We are so lucky to live where we do, here in the Dee Valley in North Wales. We can head out on a 40 minute - 5 hour walk, depending on the motivation, straight from our doorstep.
Today we set out down across the fields and as we do so a stocky smallish bird of prey rises into the sky - possibly a peregrine? Then two buzzards circle lazily upwards with their identifying mew call.
We take the lane down past the pub and up into the next valley past Debbie and Ben’s house and round the corner and on past Cymmo and up the ancient hedgerow. No longer hedges but trees that have grown horizontally out of the bank and then turned skywards, thus having a lacuna underneath their roots, large enough and dry for a sheep to crawl in and gain shelter. They seem to defy gravity, with the bulk of the tree floating above the ground.
Much of my energy is taken up climbing the hill, generally not too steep. This is the kinder way round to travel, with the ups less steep than the downs. The fractal, light brown bracken fronds pave the path along with a mosaic of darker toned soggy post-autumn leaves.
The sun is warm, especially out of the wind and the sky seems bright. As we stop to take a layer off, we notice a very faint rainbow. I ask "where is the point of refraction?" "Good question - it is actually raining ever so slightly here, so it is somewhere above our heads," comes the reply.
Later on the moss grows over the hillside that was so thoroughly burnt only two years ago; a gorse-controlling fire had got out of hand. From a distance there’s clear emerald green and orange patches, as bright as the Irish tricolour. On reaching this moss, the orange colour disappears and the emerald takes over with maybe a slight hint of darker brown stems issuing up out of the cushiony green. Then when I look up and forward or back or off to the side the orange colour returns. It’s a bit like when you look at bluebells from afar - there seems to be a blue mist shimmering above the woodland floor, but when you get up close you see there is more green than blue and the mirage is lost. Only here it was a wonderful orange. Further on, it looked like the heather was beginning to recover, there being skeletal remains that survived the burning, the new growth beginning fresh from the ground through the tines of these skeletons. Gorse was also making a bid for real estate, and I suspect it will win. I’m pretty sure it grows faster than heather and of course nothing eats it; it is far too prickly.
As we reach the next re-entrant the ground becomes boggier and any heather skeletons show various fungal growth, some bright orange, reflecting the colour of the moss, some brown and white variegated, similar to variegated geranium leaves but growing straight out of the wood. And some similarly shaped but deeper brown fungus.
I set out on this walk with my mind a-jumble of so many different thoughts and feelings. My energy levels were incredibly low - it felt like my red-blood cells had forgotten to pick up the oxygen on their way through my lungs. As I sit back on the sofa writing this during the fabulous LWS’s Writers’ Hour, I feel more vibrant and although weary from the walking, inside I am buzzing again. My mind has been cleared by the linearity of the walk and my thoughts have settled down and there is less jostling for attention.