Warm with a pinch of sun amongst the heavy cloud was the ingredients for today's walk. Wandering 5 minutes away from a busy car park and not a person to be seen.
I lost myself in imaginations and musings as I picked a handful of pine needles and crushed them in my hand before breathing in their delightful aroma.
The gorse flower gives a whack of sunshine against the grey heather and bare trees,
but I took a moment to enjoy the structures and textures of the bark and boughs before they burst into leaf. For now they are adorned with fungi, lichen and moss and the holly has been tightly pruned by ponies over the winter.
The further I ventured along the heathland track, the more I distanced myself from civilisation, as ponies shared my path, and skylarks sung from the skies. I stopped to watch fallow deer bounce across the heath and a kestrel hover above, and caught a glimpse of an adder tail disappearing under the gorse.
I turned to head back to the carpark, and I could see people with excitable dogs in the distance. As I allowed my hearing become the dominant sense, picking out calls from woodlark, skylark, stonechats, mistle thrush, and lapwing.
It may not have been perfectly in tune or rhythm, but it was wonderfully harmonious and delightful to see dog walkers respectfully avoiding the heath during this crucial period for ground-nesting birds. While I walked by the round barrow on the heath, I reflected on how people have cherished, inhabited, and revered this enchanting land for thousands of years, as it has remained almost unchanged and I share that deep love for the land as my ancestors.
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