Yesterday I went to the end of the road and down the back lane to where a small track runs off into the undergrowth. The path was sticky after so much rain, but solid still, bouncy underfoot. I walked along the back of the houses until I came to the woods, then turned down the steep hill to the bottom, where there used to be a fort. A fallen tree, it’s trunk still half attached, jagged splinters of wood sticking up beside the sleeping half. For years there have been branches propped against either side, a door at the front and logs inside to sit on. Over the years, when a few were missing, I added new ones, helping to rebuild it, but now they were almost all gone.
Further on, I took the path that bordered the field. The sudden sound of squirrels in the undergrowth made me jump. I thought for a moment I saw the yellow of a very early daffodil but it was a sad, rain soaked crisp packet. The branches were all tangled; ivy creepers dead and leafless, bushes tangled through each other, lines jutting out overhead and all around, confused and wriggling. I climbed the stile into the field, walked up the hill past the horses, who stood stolidly in the middle of the path, chewing. There was yellow sunburst lichen decorating the tree branches at the top of the hill and I climbed another stile. The sun was low and the grey sky was tipping toward nighttime blue and, above the bare branches of reaching trees, I saw the early moon, pale still in the daylight.
Bonnie Radcliffe 