An Enchanted Place

gunpowder grey clouds shift,

as night swiftly fades, lightening

with tints of mauve and lavender

and apricot, with a burst of fresh

peaches sweetly tanging across

newly awakened senses, both

promise and warning combined:

time is short; make it count

For day 36 of 365 Days Wild I walked out in the early hours to catch the dawn light. This meant leaving the house at 4.30 AM. I very nearly didn’t make it. The temptation to switch off my alarm and go back to sleep is always strong! But I did make it, and, as is always the case, I didn’t regret it for a minute.

I love to be out so early. The village I live in is quiet even at midday, but the sense of peaceful solitude whilst everyone else remains asleep, when I have only the birds and the bees and the insects for company, is beautifully intense.

Wonderfully, the moon was still out as I walked round the lanex to the best place in the village from which to view the dawn. This was the Stag Moon and it was only a little past full. It was playing peek-a-boo with the clouds in a perfect addition to my walk.

The best place in the village from which to watch the sunrise is Plot Lane. The hedgerow provides lots of opportunities for framing the rising sun with tree silhouettes, and the open farmland means that the sun quickly becomes visible.

The name of this lane has always fascinated me. Plot Lane. Plot? What sort of ‘plot’? The boring version is that it is so called because there are lots of plots of farmland along its length. I, however like the idea that it might have once upon a time been the site of some sort of plotting. It is said that during the English Civil War, retreating royalist soldiers buried their dead along this stretch. The storyteller in me wonders whether there might be some sort of a connection.

After photographing the dawn I then headed into the meadow. But I’m going to save that for another post, later, or I’ll be here all day!

Here are the last few pictures from this part of my dawn walk: