What is it I like about being outside. I think ever since I was a child, I always loved to feel free, and that freedom was in fields, and streams, hillsides and trees.
Playing outside made time stand still, until the spell was broken by being called home for meals.
I like the smell of damp stone walls, and the grittiness of a country lane, the sound of wind sighing through trees.
Childhood felt like forever.
Being introduced to the Lake District was a veritable feast! Here were greater hills, and fells and colours coming and going with the weather.
Raging torrents, quiet becks, light on water, a sense of absolute timelessness.
I have loved to be on top of a hill, or fell, as it reduces other things to a correct perspective. Time to just glory in the view laid out far below. It still is the same today, when I can finally struggle to the summit of wherever we choose to go. Thinking time. Special time. And this autumn, I have had the sense of loss more keenly, of those hills and fields of my childhood, as my dad is now no longer there, buried alongside my mum, and surrounded by the view he loved. Last year, I did not have the time to appreciate the changing colours of the leaves, and the feeling of the year winding down. I was sorting out the sale of dad's home.
So, I have relished spending time in the garden. Grubbing about in the soil, and watching the maple by the summerhouse gradually turning into a deep deep glowing red. Still a work in progress!
Yesterday was a glorious day. Crystal clear blue sky, and sharp light. leaves backlit in the late afternoon, with the sun lower on the horizon.
Damp earth, clearing fleshy nasturtiums, bitten by frost. A first pruning of the roses.
Robin singing, goldfinches twittering, and sparrows squabbling on the bird feeders! A noisy, sociable family.
And today, with its leaden sky, and rain, I can still go in my mind's eye to the glory of yesterday remembered.
October is a last burst of summer before the garden is put to bed.
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