After such a time, after so many things falling into days around me, I took the day out, didn’t look at a computer. It was a good decision.
After unpacking the car of willow from Lin collected on Wednesday, spare cakes for Serena’s wake on Friday, clip board and files from RYCT on Saturday, airmans jacket for Bo on Saturday at sparrow fart, we set off, 3 dogs and I for our familiar river, the Alde, where we left off at Rendham.
The sun had only shortly been up, and was bright on the jack frost clad land. I knew we were close as we came over the top of the valley to descend on the Low road, the crystal creations exaggerating the lines of grass, branch, and at that moment I knew I’d made the right decision.
Parked in site of where George Crabb once lived, and walked along a footpath parallel to the Ald, meandering, lined with tall Alder.
‘Cricket bat willow’, the dog trainer said when I asked about the thin trees in lines. They opened up the sluice gates the other day and the field was flooded here.
A glorious pollarded hornbeam in the ancient wood on a hill on Dodds wood.
We avoided the walk along the A12 at Stratford St Andrew by finding a footpath crossing the Alde, before walking up a road I knew well to Great Glenham. As we entered a strip field, I thought how magnificent the pollarded oaks, and then of course, I was at White House farm, and there was Jason under his hat. What a delightful surprise. Water we spoke of, (after Serena’s wake for he was there), how in 2018, his last act before leaving the management of the estate farms was to research and write a background paper on water management for the estate, for a potential funding project. The grant was not successful, but the elements still ring true and operate.
Delicious chilli non carne at the White Horse Sweffling. Long time since I had been there, I sat at the large table enjoying the Bruegel painting – timeless – in front of me, a sunday gathering of folk who all knew each other, exchanging.
Kalikellett 