Monday 01 February
I have noticed something new today. There is a special time in the morning, before day break, when the sky begins to lighten. Actually, lighten is not the right word, it is more accurate to say that it becomes less dark.
It feels like everywhere is an inky blue-grey. There is not enough light to draw the colours out from other things. Leaves, grass, buildings are all painted that thick, dark blue shade. Just moments before, everything was black. Or was it that they had no colour?
It’s conundrums like this that knots up my thinking. How can something not have colour? Or do things only have colour when light is reflected off them? Some things are too difficult for me to get my head round, they’re usually scientific things. But actually, do you know what? I don’t want to know. Instead, I will enjoy my discovery and get on with my day. Some things are best left unanswered.
Last week I read the E F Benson short story ‘And No Bird Sings’. It’s a creepy tale of a wooded copse stalked by a shadowy figure and devoid of any other life or sounds. The description reminded me of this wood that we walked through last weekend. It had a footpath running alongside it on the edge of the field and a gate providing entry.
This was the same woods that we found the strange fungal ‘snake’ growing along a branch. It was all a bit odd, as I read the story I was able to picture it. This weekend’s walk took us inadvertently to this same spot. I went in with some trepidation, listening. It wasn’t until we were twenty or so paces in that I heard the distant sound of a blackbird. It was a way off to my right and it must have been in the woods. Must have.
We went off the path a little way along crouching and weeving, under and between, branches and trunks. To a clearing. We sat and drank coffee from our flask mugs, and I was secretly pleased that the coffee had cooled considerably. It meant we were able to drink up and get moving again pretty swiftly. No hanging about in the woods and, before long, we were back out on open fields.
Kuh! Trees, eh?
The Bald Birder 