Souter Fell

I decided to brave the outside world for shopping (repeating the mantra in my head, ‘walk past the nuts, do not get nuts, no more nut roast for a long time’ but then going blank on what to cook ... opted for beetroot tarte tatin with Stilton) and then headed up Souter. Beautiful and cold. Mousethwaite Comb was a bit treacherous with compacted ice which was fine going up but I didn’t fancy going down that way so found a much easier route for which my knees were eternally grateful.

I love that feeling I get as I finish a walk sometimes...slightly trancelike, slightly elegiac, sounds that are irritating when I start (cars on the A66) have been filtered elsewhere whilst I’ve slipped and merged into another zone. The poem and extra go together. My long shadow emphasising the absurdity of me/self.

Leaves, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Years do odd things to identity.
What does it mean to say
I am that child in the photograph
at Kishamish in 1935?
Might as well say I am the shadow
of a leaf of the acacia tree
felled seventy years ago
moving on the page the child reads.
Might as well say I am the words she read
or the words I wrote in other years,
flicker of shade and sunlight
as the wind moves through the leaves.