A grabbed walk – Monday midday with L – I had hoped for a quiet walk and wee friendly shoulder and some in person time with my bright as a button friend. Many vehicles were exiting and entering the park as I turned into the alley, and I remember noticing the depot gate was stalled half open yesterday, in the rain and probably since Saturday or before, some kind of electrical fault I imagined. A strange pair with long forks and bags and wellies and twigs turned into TC and his pal, all set for planting alder, birch, holly, a bagful of promise. As we chat I spot L black and red in the distance and make my way through oak leaf mast to find her on the pile of shredded oak. We had barely turned when we saw I and R, the bassett hound, then over the bridges we posse on and we meet A and Fudge then W the healer, Ly and G out too it really is becoming like Grand Central Station. Of course it’s mid term and kids are released from their screens and the wet is still in abeyance. Eventually we shake off the crowds and do a detour to the witches butter on the high pass, L’s patch, it’s growing, spiralling round the old gorse branch, a burnt one. We touch its cool weighty body. L imagines the taste of witches butter on burnt gorse toast.
Back on the main drag we bump into K down from Farranree, a young heron rises up from the water and glides into the dense dark green of the Cyprus trees on the island, that mystic portal where A and I had seen the faerie lights the night of her birthday. As one heron settles another swoops out – two herons one for each tree.