Walking

I have been walking almost every day for the last ten days. I am trying to get fitter, lighter, and more full of energy! I want to be in good shape by the time I fly to North Carolina! Picture me, although it maybe best not... wobbling down the pavement like a whale out of water, and you will have a fairly accurate image of my progress on the first few outings! Things are improving though, and I am actually starting to look forward to my walk. It gets me out of the studio, and I also get to meet other animals (I don't always see people on my walks!). Sometimes I take a camera with me. The photos are some that I took on my adventures. Fear not, I am potting as well as going for walks, and I have a kiln load of crystalline pots cooling down as I write this. Photos will follow soon.

Spring, well.... almost. The lambs are appearing; little mud splashed blobs of dipping and bobbing white.

Sometimes confused by the new world of warm udders, rain and sun, mud and grass, lambs forget the scent of mother, the feel of her rough tongue, her harsh call, and the warm fragrance of her breath. It is then that the shepherd may intervene, and carefully seek out the mother from the flock, and reunite her and her lost one.

The ground is still cold from winter, and clammy with water, but green shoots and leaves are starting to appear on land that has been tilled, and tended.

On cold days, when the sky and lagoon share mud and ooze, colours are muted and earthy. Dark trees clump together and wriggle and undulate across the landscape.

A fall of snow in the high country arrived silently in the night, by stealth. Gray and wet one day, an adornment of snow the next.

The light is low and intense. Pine trunks, red, gray and black. Shadows draw on the needle covered ground. It is charcoal, crayon and ink.

The lagoon funnels into a little river, and ripples reflect a blue patch in the sky, sober pine tree green, and the tracery of branches.

From where do you come little river? You have mud on your shoes. Muddy river!

Little River, this is sand and sea! Wild sea, and open sky so high, so vast, so clear!

How busily you play with sand. Ripples and wrinkles are your sand castles. The fossil record of where you passed, yesterday, or an hour ago.

Water moving, always moving. Restless, bubbling, chuckling, water reflecting sky, transporting mud, and sand.

Water advanced, receded, and changed its mind.

Water sculpted sand, and sand reflected sky.

Little river bending on the beach. Exhilarated by the air and space, like a dog zig-zagging and barking.

The final run, where river meets sea. A sharing of mud and salt, combined by the restless movement of advancing waves.