Tuesday 08 September
Having a pint in a pub beer garden, at 8pm on a weekday evening, is an unplanned pleasure. Its soon going to be too cold/wet/windy/dark (delete as applicable) to do, so we grabbed the opportunity this evening after our walk. We sit and talk about the rapidly increasing cases of the virus and the stresses of keeping people ‘safe’ at work. But somehow, doing so with a pint in my hand and sat in the warm evening air, makes it that little bit more palatable.
The smoky blue sky of an early autumn evening is brushed with patchy stripes of cloud in various shades of grey. I take a drink and talk briefly of the new walk Lisa has just taken me on. Then I look again at the same patch of sky and everything has noticeably darkened.
The walks that we snatch at in these shortening evenings are ever so precious. This one started with low, bright, soft orange sunshine winking through the trees on the skyline. And finished with air, humid and still, with the various smells of home-cooked meals hanging as we walked back, past the terraced housing on the high street, to the car.
We started walking through hay meadows and alongside agricultural land the sweeps and drifts up to obvious high points. Langham Church is perched on the brow of the hill.
Then, through dense woodland that rekindled memories for us both of places visited when we were younger. And further appreciation of how woodland can feel quite sinister at this time of year. Just like a tide can cut you off from the land if you misjudge the tide times. So a woodland can isolate and strand a lone walker when night falls sooner than expected; the slowly dying leaves create a dark canopy of cover. Keeping out whats left of the rapidly fading light.
The Bald Birder 