So, I geared up for a walk this morning having fallen asleep with a rum and coke while following the Lance Armstrong interview with my mobile phone.
There was a brisk wind last night that has blown the frost out of the trees, and the mist has lessened to leave a view of a sickly yellow grey snowy sky that hasn't started depositing any snow yet here in Nottinghamshire. Paths are still slippery, and my hands are still getting cold. I have invented a new way of keeping them warm by vigorously blowing under the wrist, amusing mysel;f as the glove comedically inflates like a pulsating living entiry about to wrap itself around a passing throat.
London Road Lake is frozen apart from a small area down the far end, where the mallards are squabbling. Great tits blur gey and yellow as the fly along the cycle path. A friendly dog owned by a co-worker lumbers joyfully into view from someone's garden.
At the back of TK Maxx, by the river, someone has put out a few fat balls in red stringy bags low down on a willow tree I think. Old skool bird feeding! Nothing was on these feeders, but underneath and not more that 5 feet away, there was a veritable bird party going on. 7 or 8 Blackbirds, a couple of Dunnocks making faint little peeping noises with their pretty striated chests showing up against the leaf litter. And there was also a fearless robin strutting back and forth on the ground, all but barging the much larger blackbirds out of the way. It flitted up onto a low branch and gave me a series of hard avian stares, as if it wanted me out of the way before feeding, or alternatively starting a feathered blood-bath.
By the barge pub, a cormorant caught a fish, and made a great show of swallowing it, casting its head back, gulping, shaking its beak, and generally looking like an fat man overdoing the praise of a gourmet meal.
I saw nothing exciting, or extra-ordinary today. But that doesn't matter. It was a simple walk, seeing simple things, on a simple sort of day. And I enjoyed it greatly.
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