Walking along the footpaths in Upper St Leonards today in what feels like the beginning of summer, despite the longest day of the year having tipped itself over towards the downward run to autumn just a few days ago, I was reminded of my magical walks during the lockdown period. It was a time when the ordinary suddenly seemed extraordinary. Every day I went out and tramped along the footpaths that I’d never properly explored in all my – then – 35 years of living in the area. I got to see Spring unfolding amidst the strange atmosphere of those times when normality was stripped of its armour. I witnessed more in the tiniest turn of Nature’s inner machine than I’d never fully appreciated before and it reminded me of that which has true value amidst the corruption that materialism brings in its wake.
Now, four years later I never take Nature’s wonders for granted. Every day I escape to the little park that offers within its parameters the whole gamut of nature. I have favourite trees that I talk to (mostly in my head!) and one that I stand in front of to do my exercises; and there’s the view from an Italian style balcony from which one can look through a frame of leaning branches and elegant white and brick toy houses, across the kidney shaped pond that is a mirror to much of this, and on to a taut stretch of sea beyond it all. The bliss of this takes me by surprise every time I see it and it is enough to send any bad mood skittering onto the curving path below and out of sight.
Today it was the alley running by the allotment that drew me in with its bounties: the leaning over of blossoms and
leaves reaching out to the light, or just bending with the wind; a rose so fat it can hardly stay on its stem. It has already gone past the blowsy stage and is heading for decay; a wild plot whose tender has perhaps died, left the area, got bored, is going to the wild will of nature and is, to my eyes, beautiful to see.
Walking home, past the old Technical College site where new houses for those who can afford them have been built, I was greeted by a vision of trees much older than these smart dwellings, leaning over them like dark sentinels, as they glistened below in the afternoon sun. The phrase: All that glisters etc sprang to mind…