It was the end of the day, the end of the weekend and I was exhausted by life admin when I dragged myself out for a walk. I walked past the patch of heathland where cars always linger, past the tangled bracken and high nettles. I slipped through a break in the woods, off the road and into a tree tunnel.
The tunnel sloped down, the path meandering, never straight, the lush green leaves crowning far above. The undergrowth that was cut back before spring had resprouted and curls of green bracken brushed my calves. Ahead, the sun was low and it shot shafts of orange across the path, through the ivy and tufted grass. I climbed a stile and came out in the lower field, where the long grass was the colour of pale sand. It whispered in the wind and I could see the white and black backs of ponies. Standing to watch them, I made out two smaller shapes, this years foals still staying close to their mothers.
Another stile, another field, squeezing past brambles and then the gold grass, stretching away, the path dropping in a graceful curve away from a single oak, to where the burnt ball of the sun shot its last rays over the trees. There was cow parsley, mallow and mugwort beside the path, two huge buddleias, one purple, one white, and a pretty bush of purple stars I think was bittersweet nightshade. There were grasshoppers and crickets churring invisibly and I watched a bee dance over the yellow head of a ragwort bloom.
I went back, through both fields, through the woods and up the tree tunnel hill. At the top, a wren was peeping an alarm call as I approached. I squeezed back out onto the tarmac and as I walked away, a threat removed, I heard his song cease.
Bonnie Radcliffe 