Ah the luxury, the freedom, the unexpected time, the glorious isolation that covid bequeaths. Apart from the body stuff (temperature, dozy, vomiting, pathetic weak, dippy, sniffy) which will of course pass, the sudden gap that is given is a joy.
Tasks are minimal and each one acclaimed as a miracle. My one physical task this day was to move the Halesworth ASH sign from the A12 (I got an email saying it was obscuring the road view of the Bramfield turning) and to find a new place. The Beccles road had it, and I found a sweet grassy sward at Brampton. Opposite of which was a road to Stoven and so it was the dogs and I walked Stoven wood to see our old friend, a Hornbeam pollard.
I’d first met it during the first COVID time, spring 2021, when Michael and I ventured out each Tuesday to find a local wood.
There was an unexpected end however to this known walk, as I came across a staked up footpath which led me to a garden, of named plants and meandering paths, to the more conventional footpath, where I met the land owner. A woman with a one year old bedlington dog who she easily let meet my two collies. She’s lived her 40 years and found out no one owned the land, so she somehow bought it. Her and her husbands care of the land, a tender mix of woodland and cultivation, is beautiful to experience, unexpectedly, seemlessly integrated into the natural footpath systems either side.
Kaliwood 