so I thought about getting into the Glen last night at nightfall and this morning at sunrise, but that didn’t happen. Instead I cam about 2 pm and the Glen was full of sunday people, it was nice to linger a while and chat. I had just an hour and I know how that flies by here so I thought i would do a round keeping to the main path, the Glen superhighway. I had intended to listen to a podcast overlaying the steps and thoughts of a walker in Paris on my loop and seeing what might collide but I had come without my headphones so I was grateful also to have just my own thoughts on quite a busy weekend. The temperature was perfect, no wind. I took the road East and swung by the Fleischmanns, I couldn’t resist entering briefly to check on emerging things, the delicate white anemones are still holding their ground so beautifully here. Then over the bridge where a couple are poised, looking upstream and chatting as they do. Along the north bank of the ponds and looking into the water I see it is bubbling in a strange way, beneath the oil slick – could it be newly hatched tadpoles, its definitely some kind of life form…transfixed by this I hadn’t noticed Greta wading peacefully around me, just a couple of arms breadths away, and she saunters deftly off as I become aware of her, such a tease, I take a photo as she disappears beyond the rushes. I have countless photos of her as a white digital smudge, strung together they might read as a kind of semaphore. Further along I visit the hatch, staying on the north bank I veer off the main drag after the pencil factory, I go the the blackbirds’ water bound willow and get chatting to some men who are peering into the water, looking for minnows, they have a trap further downstream, a kind of a cone that they get into and can’t find their way out I imagine a traffic cone in my head as we are staring into water full of that kind of thing, perhaps it is. Anyway the water is moving too fast lately for much joy with catching any, and the trout further down the Lee are saved from their bait. They leave empty handed, little black terrier in tow. I rush home a little later than anticipated, it’s ok as it turns out everyone is on slow time today.