feet to automatic

After the drive home on the longer route and cooking for all still present (my eldest two) I felt the need for light exercise and to breathe out the week.

I fancied a short stroll, but unbidden my feet set out on the clockwise walk round the village, out on the Westerly unmetalled track. Waving my feet at the road let my mind clear and I consciously breathed a little slowly and deeply until I could feel the tension start to drain away. As I crossed the green, before the track, the clouds to my right were dark stacks with sun-lit peaks above. The foreground was oak, cedar and larch and below, a lawn of yellow flowers and boggy grass dotted with pigeons.

Not many people about; only a couple of walking dogs. The path was dry, but recent rain (heavy on Thursday) had left pools around on the track and the lawns. The cooling air also left moisture behind as it released the vapour of the day.

As my direction turned to North West the sky was clear above me, but had a ribbon of bubbling marsh-mallow pierced from below by conifer crowns on a more distant horizon and compressed from above by a slate of heavy cloud that built to my right, but slowly lightened to the left until it merged with the ribbon's texture.

Before the end of the track, there were few animals in evidence. The last but one visitor was leaving the car-park as I arrived. My attention was drawn to the temporary pool (at the site of that fallen branch, now removed) where a couple of little gulls were dancing in the shallows finding food. I peered in, but couldn't see what they were taking, unless it was the black flies flying just over the surface. I stopped disturbing the gulls as a couple more arrived, circling cautiously until I crossed the road again and headed into the village core.

A few ponies emerged from the trees, coming the other way. I recognised a grey that I've seen in the mornings, with a chestnut that has a foal, but the foal wasn't with the grey this evening. I walked tall on a raised bank, glancing left to watch the evolving sun-set over a hedge, saw the blind windows of an old stable block looking back. More ponies arrived as I entered the gloom under beech and holly trees; insects began to bump my face.

Rather than take a direct route home from the village edge, I turned left along the North West edge to watch the light a while longer. The near clouds were separating, but the slab still hid the sun. Over oak crowns the layered cloud suddenly looked like scalloped edged lace curtain, but another five yards broke the illusion. Finally the sun dropped below the bottom of the slab and I had to look away from the direct glare to watch the orange sky fire each pane of glass in the houses to my right. The foal was there, with its mare, trying to lean against her legs for comfort.

I passed through a space between these buildings to follow the stream into the village. The stream was flowing swiftly with the rain water, washing the weed straight at its banks and almost clear in the centre, but for a little iron stain and silt. The sky still glowed between the houses; orange-pink with purple brown cloud. The light was ebbing, highlighting pale greens and the house, white frames. Muddying the dark greens into the lurking shadows.