On Sunday mornings I work. But since there are no buses on Sunday at the time I have to leave, it means I have to walk all the way.
I don’t mind, though.
After a couple of uninteresting miles along streets of houses and shops, my route goes across common land and thence through farmland and woodland for another three or four miles.
As I walk, I inevitably find myself thinking about what I’m busy writing at the moment, and just as inevitably ideas come.
This always happens when I walk, but on Sundays my thoughts tend to be about poems. I’ve got into the habit of that, although I’ve no idea why.
But it means I usually have another page or two of notes in a notebook by the time I reach my workplace – a long outcrop of rock at the edge of woodland, since you ask.
After I finish work, I can get a bus part of the way home if I choose to, but only if I wait for over an hour and a half. If I do, then I can spend a while in the pub by the bus stop and have a beer and contemplate life, or something like that.
Sometimes I does and sometimes I doesn’t.
Yesterday, the clocks went back, to officially tell us that summer is over and winter is well on the way. Inevitably, then, yesterday turned into a perfect autumn day. So I decided to walk home. After I had been walking for half an hour, I stopped and sat in a small drift of dry leaves, my back against a tree, eating my sandwiches.
Overhead, a pair of buzzards were circling high up and calling to each other. The sun was out, and in my small area of beech woodland the leaves were turning orange and yellow. The sky was blue, and in the sunshine it was still warm. It was perfect, and I sat with my back against the tree for some while after I had finished eating, just thinking and enjoying life.
Soon, it will get much colder. There will be rain.
But yesterday was just as perfect as it could have been.
I can imagine everything you wrote about. So beautiful.
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Thank you. Is was a real treat!
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So what do you like? Walking? Writing or work?
I’m sure you enjoy your time in woods!
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Walking, definitely. Writing, certainly. The work is rewarding, but I’m feeling the pull of retirement more and more at the moment, Arv!
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I think we all pass through different moments. If it persists… you’ll know that it’s not temporary.
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I agree. I think it’s permanent!
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If it is permanent then I guess there isn’t much you do.
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There’s nothing quite like a walk on a nice fall day.
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I couldn’t agree more, Dave. It certainly made me feel a lot better about life.
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Ah, simple, intense pleasures. Autumn is the perfect walking season. Here, we’re just coming into summer, and the weather has been unusually good for this time of year. I get a lot of my ideas while walking, too.
There’s something about the rhythm and the fact that you’re not thinking about anything much at all really seems to liberate that part of the brain.
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Definitely, Denise. When I get stuck with my writing, I always ‘take it for a walk’.
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Perfect place to lunch! And a terrific workplace too 🙂
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Very much so. It was a shame I didn’t have more time, or I would have spent longer there.
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That’s a wonderful picture you have written. I think its essential we all have times on our own to think and contemplate. I envy you the quiet walk to work and maybe its a blessing they aren’t any buses as it gives you great ” me time!”. Like the idea of the stopping off at The Pub after, as well… LOL
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The quiet time is essential at the moment. But the work will be over for a few months, soon, and I’ll have to find another way to get some space!
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