After the stinging hail

J was rather out of sorts and subdued, without identifying any specific reason, and after lunch I enjoyed  an hour and a half of knitting and chatting on Zoom but achieved very little during the rest of the day. At teatime I escaped outside for a walk round the orchard, where I knew there would be apple and pear blossom I can barely see from the house. As I reached the gate dark clouds obscured the sun, and by the time I was halfway down huge gusts of wind were rocking the tallest trees. As I approached the willow thicket at the far corner and turned to look across the valley, stinging hail pelted my face. I turned, head down, camera zipped inside my fleece jacket, and moved as briskly as I could between the rough tussocks underfoot, melting hail slithering down the back of my neck. Five minutes later, back at the top of the orchard, the squall had passed and brilliant sunshine shone on the blossom from an intense, slatey grey-blue sky