A walk to meet the ecology crew today, cold before the snow, we hovered in a square circle on the grass, between the blue bench and the Swamp Cypresses. N produced some carefully stapled documents but the cold metal of the bench wasn’t hospitable and so we hovered in formation and spoke about focusing our energies. It occurred to me that we must have appeared a unique kind of square dance as we shuffled marginally clockwise, eyes and ears containing the space between us. Eventually to get a little warmer we walked the loop, inspecting the path along the way and talking about trees, hedges walls and stewardship. We walked the puddled path with no indication of where the malteasers had fallen yesterday, the magpies must have been only delighted said L as she handed me four oak galls from Fota, precious in her woolly gloved hand. The bagged metal object was gone from the bushes, after a week presiding, we all remarked. There were ripped up ivy branches shoved everywhere around, the drain was gunge grey and smelly by ‘P the wall’s white stripe. We crossed the river and looked up at the fallen lumber, us four standing on the spot where L had been and where she had shouted up from as the trees were being felled by the surgeon. N got on his phone and found the address of the house on google maps. We talked of the lack of ‘green landscaping,’ an intention designated by conditions of the development and not, as ever, completed, a fence here at the park’s edge instead. It was all getting a bit heavy as the list grew, M passed with Corey, S& E ambled along. GWMcC arrived at the bridge with Comanche just as we did and I was glad to see him, he had another lovely heavy chestnut mare in tow, with a thick black mane, she was called “Groundshadow’ or something I didn’t quite catch. The two horses stood ankle deep in stream as the hair swirled about their hooves. Lisa and I peeled off to our usual entrance and a catch up while N& I left by the Zigzag, tiny hailstones were swirling about. No photos today.