A Country Walk…

Slice of Life Challenge Day 10#

I was tired of sorting out whether someone bent the badminton racket on purpose while trying to fix it, or was actually aiming to mend it, or why one teacher is not getting on so well with the rest of the team, so I decided to go for a country walk….in my mind.

I stroll through a wood where the path meanders apparently aimlessly, but I know I’m always going to find the end eventually.

Leafy remnants crunch beneath my feet, such a rich satisfying sound. I spot the tiny shoots of spring poking through around me, the soft breath of snowdrops and the hazy smile of daffodils encircling some of the trees.

Just as I reach the wood’s edge, there’s a swelling carpet of bluebells, so much softer hues but still richer than any sapphire. My nose is filled with the dregs of winter and tired dead trees and rich earth exhaling the promise of spring.

Along the river’s edge, pussy willows bud and catkins droop their ochre tails into the drifting depths. Up on the bank of the meadow, there are lambs shaking their own lively tails and headbutting one another in the full momentous joy of being alive. Their mothers munch stolidly on, black heads bowed as they advance step by chomping step along their life’s journey.

I stoop to touch the damp spiky grass and wonder what it must be like to chomp on grass stalks all day long. No wonder those little lambs leap and prance so blissfully while they are still able to suckle warm milk from their mums. All too soon they will be confined to a life of steady and endless chewing!

I feel refreshed and invigorated by residual memories of spring in England, more than half a lifetime ago. I can return to the present and deal with bent and battered badminton rackets and a teacher who has been offended by another’s remarks.

Let’s do it!