Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

4 January

This morning we take a different route and walk along the lane towards the church and the Hall.  Once out on the ridge, I can see for several miles in each direction.  The sky is flat grey and the chill air is damp and clinging.  The cold penetrates the fingers of my gloves. The moisture in the atmosphere is what my mother would have called “mizzle” - that hybrid of mist and drizzle. What is most noticeable, however, as we descend the hill, is the stillness.  With almost no air movement today, there is a welcome silence after the battering storm.

The road winds down between high hedges. Their auburn and mauve/scarlet branches makes them stand out against the leaden sky.  Something about their colour and roughly woven structure makes me think of a pirate’s beard from childhood literature!  From them comes the chitter-chatter of numerous small birds, who dart rapidly in and out, down the line ahead of me. Three large oaks emerge from the right-hand hedge.  Crows flap about lazily in their naked branches, flying up and down to the field below where, until recently, sheep were grazing.

All text & images ©2018 Carol Saunderson

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