When I got up today there had been quite a hard frost so I scraped off the car windscreen and went out for my usual short drive. The sun was shining here in the city centre when I left but before I reached the city boundary I had run into thick fog.
Nevertheless, I went out on my usual route and when I returned back into the city I was back in sunshine. I called into the garage and filled the car with petrol and drove home for breakfast.
Later on, I went out for a walk, well wrapped up as the wind was quite fresh and very cold. There are not many places where there are no people or cars in the city so I headed across Castle Green where I usually encounter a few people but no cars. I stood and watched a couple of young men rowing along the river in front of the old brewery and listened to the chaffinches and blue tits in the trees and when I looked down I noticed the tips of daffodils just poking a half inch or so through the soil in the rememberance garden in front of me. So spring is coming.
On my way back home, I thought about the walks that I used to have years ago, up on the downs in Wiltshire or along the path that went through the park to a place called Henford's Marsh where I could see swans nesting in spring. I expect that's all been built on now but I know that the downs around the golf course remain the same. I used to walk there every day with my mother-in-law, my aunt and the dogs before I had the children and it's where I learned to recognise the slightest changes which heralded a new season, either through the different plants and flowers that grew there or the birds and their songs. There was not only a long path running up through the woods but also the wild grassy areas just below the golf course which was right on the top of the downs. The view was spectacular because you could see for miles on a clear day. Even if it was wet and windy, there was always something new to see or hear or smell.
Oh! How I long for walks like that.
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