I take the footbridge over a forded river and pause halfway to listen to the water. A small salmon swims stationary in the currents, under a shaft of sunlight, waiting to snare an unsuspecting midge.
I try to imagine for a moment, what it must be like for the fish, acutely aware of every eddy running over its scales, adjusting for the distortions of light through the water’s surface, as it prepares to pounce upon the fly. I like to play this empathy game. I’ll never truly know whether I’ve glimpsed what it’s really like to be another being, so different from myself. Nonetheless, trying tends to cultivate a certain respect and connection, and it informs my understanding of the world, such as it is.
When I realise that the salmon isn’t going to perform acrobatics on my account, I continue over the bridge and up the lane. Two tarmacked tracks with a grassy mid-rift peppered with violets, and hedgerows either side that climb in places more that ten feet tall, making me feel like a hobbit.
Across a neighbouring field, crows and jackdaws convene their noisy parliament amongst a stand of trees. The world is being put to rights. Or perhaps they are simply squabbling over how the six million earthworms in the surrounding field will be divvied out.
I pass a small farm with six pigs in a paddock. No squabbling here, just laid-back, easy companionship. It’s a sweltering afternoon, and they have lathered themselves in mud—nature’s sunblock. One pig, prostrate, flicks a single bunting ear, to discourage a bluebottle.
To my left, highland cattle raise their gingery heads to inspect me. Their mournful eyes stare into my very soul, though what they are looking for, I cannot tell. I feel I’m being examined by a throng of holy gurus, and they soon return to their chewing, evidently not finding what they sought.
Feeling spiritually wanting, I plough onward. The fields about me gently roll away in a patchwork of meadow, marsh and scrub, sown together with seams of hawthorn, sycamore and bramble. The most distant fields recede into a dreamy watery blue.
As I turn to go on once more, I see one such sycamore standing before me, in the verge. It has the feeling of a lodge, of sorts, for travellers along the road. It casts a welcomed umbrella over the lane. Staying at the inn is a wandering musician. A blackbird flautist, perched somewhere on-high, and it ad-libs a breathtaking cadenza, though probably not for my benefit. Nonetheless, I appreciate the virtuoso, as it enjoys the acoustics of its leafy concert hall.
Here I stand, fascination to be found lurking in every grassy hollow, every gnarly thicket. The lane continues to gift me landscapes and sculptural curiosities, as though it were a curated gallery.
Sometimes, when the sun is shining, and time is abundant, you catch a fleeting, happy sense that, maybe—just maybe—you might be on the right path.
Newsletter: About nature, mindfulness and happiness
Want to come for a walk? Join me as I explore the natural world and describe to you the fascinating things I find.
Slow down, escape your troubles, and let me whisk you away to somewhere calm…
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