puddleshark

By the heath, there is a wood of oaks and silver birches. Only a small wood, but the path through it loops and winds so extravagantly that following it is like walking a mizmaze, a ceremonial path that turns and twists around, until you lose all sense of progress or direction, and the point is simply to be walking, in this place, at this moment.

There was a spectacular molten solstice sunrise - the sun blazing through the clouds - but I saw it on the drive across the heath, and berated myself for not getting up twenty minutes earlier. By the time I set off on my walk, the sun was just a hint of yellow in the clouds.

After walking the path through the woods, set off across the heath. Met a woman on a grassy way through the gorse clumps, and she greeted me with "Winter Solstice blessings!". I returned the blessing.

Onto the track which was once a narrow-gauge railway line, transporting clay from the local workings to a quay on the edge of the harbour. Alongside the track, a prickly hedge of hawthorn and holly, briar and gorse. Robins singing thin wintry songs high in the bare branches. Flocks of fieldfares feeding on the dark red haws and bright red holly berries.

The heath in its winter colours.

A line of alders along the edge of the marshes. Cloud arriving over the hills, and the scent of rain in the air. Just as I reached the car, the day suddenly grew very dark, and the rain began.