We demonstrated our eco-credentials by setting out yesterday in our matching green wellies leaving the car on the drive. Though it is tempting at this time of year to head for the hills or to make for the sea, we chose to follow the green corridors of conserved woodland valleys that intersect the former farmlands.
In these wildlife sanctuaries we saw wrens and robins, magpies and blackbirds singing from the scrubland. We mentally congratulated the friends of the local park for fundraising, balsam-bashing and path laying. We looked out over the poplar-fringed vistas of the golf course, possibly threatened by development and speculated on the identity of the large private estate ringed by high fences and security apparatus. We saw a handful of others, younger than ourselves, and dodged cars using the old lane as a cut through. We went along a small brook by a previously unexplored 'snicket' - my dialect - locally 'ginnel' to find ourselves at the back of a secondary school; the unfortunate trail of plastic bottles and wrappers had already alerted us to this.
This is where we live. Green wellies make this exploration possible and like some magical footwear also take me step by step into a happy place where logs bridge streams, birds sing and the midwinter sun sets in a cloudless crimson sky.
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