Oak tree, Byton, just off the Moor; December 6th 2008Today is the feast-day of St Nicholas, and so should really be the start of my Christmas preparations. I have marked the day by finding some cards to send and thinking about my Christmas cakes. And a good walk to Limebrook Priory, about four miles away near Lingen. A muddy, leg-tearing walk on a fine day, although there is still ice on the ditches. I had to walk through the shoot; toffs with guns and muddy dogs shooting the fields on the Byton side of the valley. The Priory was dissolved in 1539 and there are now just some lumps in the field and two overgrown walls, but it is a peaceful spot and I had walk-snacks sitting by the lime brook, watching the birds and listening to the water.
I am lucky in that wherever I live I soon find favourite spaces for walks, places uniquely 'mine', a way perhaps of marking where I live and how I live. Limebrook is one of my places; so is Wapley Hill; and so is the beech ring marking Offa's Dyke. Places I have discovered and share with everybody and nobody. Points on a mental map, a peculier landscape.
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