I took a different turning at a certain point in my walk today, remembering a cut I used to take off Albany Rd that led to allotments; but if you went left at some point you would find yourself eventually in an unadopted road leading back to civilisation. It’s easy to lose your bearings though. I stepped into a road surrounded by detached suburban houses with large front gardens bursting with a competition of spring flowers, dwarf trees and shrubs, where all sense of being in a seaside town ebbed away. For a moment I hesitated. I had no idea where I was and yet all I’d done was walk down a straight cut. It was almost as though I’d stepped through a rip in the fabric of time, like a character in a Philip Pullman saga and found myself in an alternative version of St Leonard’s. But after a moment of mild panic I kept going left and there I was at the end of the unadopted road that let back to the known!
These calla lilies were my greatest delight of the walk: a symbol of rebirth and resurrection.
