As the shafts of light force themselves through the dreary covers of winter a great haze is produced over the Shropshire landscape. The view across the Corve Dale becomes a dappled patchwork of greens: bright, new shooted fields merging into deep hued pine plantations, bounded by the remote wilderness of the Clee. Only the skylark's song is clear as I walk back to Bourton, a crisp endless trill as the bird rises up and into the strong easterly headwind.
Even now I can’t escape the snow. There are paths still unusable with drifts which the sun has not yet shrunk and everywhere grimy snow-ploughed heaps refuse to yield. Daffodils are struggling to lift their heads after being flattened for so long under the weight of white; grass which should be green and springy is lank and dull.
Why are the fields so dry after the snow, I ask myself, and then I realise my position - 250 m above sea level. The wind has done its work on the sloping ground and gravity is doing the rest. The rutted tracks and field edges below have streams of water running down them; water which will flow down into the haze until it reaches the Corve. What is usually a tinkling stream is today a torrent.
Afternoon shadows lengthen and I decide to follow the water home, determined to see not the remains of winter but the signs of spring - primroses, celandines. I have never been so happy to see the wearied leaves of a plantain as it pokes out from the deep banks of snow.
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