Swan Song

The winds have been wild, tearing branches, cracking trunks and driving the rain sideways against the window panes. It blew in something else, bizarrely, Mary Poppins-like. A swan. A swan on a smallish pond is a huge thing. We have a regular heron visitor, it's true, but he stands in the shallows at the edge, preferring to hide his size. The swan sat majestically in the centre, its mere presence enough to scatter the ducks. It wasn't fully grown, its Ugly Duckling plumage still visible, the greyish brown feathers adding to its general sense of despondency. You could tell it wasn't happy. It would periodically scramble inelegantly up the bank and wander round the grass as if looking for something, it's huge feet making squelchy indentations in the saturated ground. And then the wind changed.... and it left as suddenly as it had come.

Wenlock Winter

Winter on Wenlock Edge: a combination of frosty winds and the icy clarity of an idyllic winter's day. The night brought frost. Icy sheets forming across the umbellifers, creating parasols against the warmth of the sun's rays. As I walk the crackling of my footsteps on the iron ground disturbs fieldfares and redwings, roosting amongst the hazels and willows of a nearby hedge. A mixed flock of thrushes dive onto a hawthorn, strpping the berries. If it hadn't been for the mild autumn and early winter they would have been scoffed long before now. My breath steams before me as I round a corner and look on the land to the west, beyond the Edge. Here the air is still cold, but the view is different. The sky is sunny and clear and I can see past the Long Mynd and onwards to the Welsh Marches and beyond. The cold shadow of Wenlock Edge is slowly retreating from the landscape and possibly, as the days are lengthening, so too is the icy grip of winter.