Since I finished my year of walking in 2016 when I walked every week, if not every day, I now have to feed my addiction. Today I have carved out one hour to myself, and I am determined to get out and walk.
It's 7.00 am, and I have already climbed above, and beyond the houses and past the beautiful fairytale-like church with its tall spire. I breathe the cool September air into my lungs. I pause to focus and look around - I see bright green hops like Chinese lanterns rambling through wild elderberry and hazel trees. Orange-red rose hips the size of crab apples are shining out dotting the landscape with spots of colour drawing my eye across the fields and up towards the distant hills and beyond. In the neighbouring fields green apples shine out in their fluorescently green lushness as if floating away from the branches that support them, but dark red burgundy apples lie hidden buried snugly into the dark green foliage. The stream is lined with pink and white flowering jewelweed as far as the eye can see, these have exploded into life since I was last here, they add beauty to the verge. The water in the stream flows quickly, and in the direction in which I am walking; it hastens my step. As the clear water skips and dances noisily across rocks and pebbles a bird whizzes past me and just above the water level against the flow, all I see is a blur of brown, there is no time to identify it. He seems to be in a terrible hurry, late for something important, perhaps? I check my watch I too am short of time. I quicken my step and find that I have managed an exhilarating walk in only 50 minutes. I have 10 minutes of my allotted hour left, so I make, drink and savour a strong cup of coffee as I look out of the kitchen window admiring our crop of beetroot, pumpkins and weirdly shaped gourds. The gourds have wound themselves through our apple trees and up into the line of fir trees that mark the boundary. They are throbbing with life. We shall definitely be having pumpkin soup for supper.
Is that the time? I must get to work!
What a wonderful life!