I
have just returned from a walk. With plenty to do, I shouldn’t have succumbed
but the lure of this cold, sunny morning proved irresistible and before I knew it,
I was opening the garden gate and walking along the local roads and lanes.
The little voice that usually tries to spoil the fun with ‘you ought to be doing
such and such’, didn’t even bother whispering today, for it knew it would be
pointless. At sunrise, I had noticed the pink tipped clouds through the
veil of mist, and took my cup of tea out into the garden where the steam from
the hot drink mixed with that of my breath. The cold nipped my fingers and slapped my
cheek, rousing me from my sleepy state.
I was fully awake now, alive to
every little nuance, sight, sound and smell around me. I drank it in.
On going indoors, I washed the breakfast things, immersing my hands in the
warm, bubbly water and before I knew it, I was at the gate with coat on and
hands deep in my pockets. Nothing on my
mind, just following my own footsteps.
What did I see on my walk this morning? The sun
in one direction, casting its warm rays onto the bodies of the sheep dozing
blissfully in the fields. I saw tree sparrows and green finches zig-zagging
across the lane and darting amongst the branches of the trees and hedges, twittering
loudly to each other. Rooks called from the tree-tops and a robin increased
the volume of his song against the background of their raucous noise.
I reached a gap in the hedge, a field-gate, and from
there I watched the last thin wisps of morning mist fade to reveal nature in
her Autumn dress. No admission charge at this entrance to an exhibition
of the highest Art. Nature is generous and bestows her gifts freely on
all who are prepared to stop and look. The mountains lay in the distance
yet every path and chasm was clearly visible. In the near distance, a group
of four or five trees were ablaze, as though red and orange flames were
engulfing their leafy canopies. Green
fields surrounded me, laid to pasture, interspersed in places by some that were
a pale golden colour following the harvesting of wheat and the cutting of hay. A brown thread ran here and there between
these fields, the recently ploughed rich, dark soil now visible and dotted with
black and white specks where rooks and sea-gulls foraged for food. To my left, spread over the wood like a
patchwork quilt were trees and shrubs bedecked in varying hues and shades of
yellows, golds, reds, oranges and browns.
I stood mesmerised by such beauty and drifted out of
myself to meet the fields, trees, birds and sky without moving from my vantage
point. I don’t know how long I was gone
but I was roused from my trance-like state by the
sound of someone saying ‘Thank you.’
It
was me.
“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
Anne of Green Gables
