Moorland

Driving home from Welshpool I noticed snowdrops everywhere; huge clumps along the roadsides, more than I seem to have seen before.   New grass cautiously springing up beneath dead blond stems.  A lot of mist and light rain on the moors as I drove out, which had cleared by the time I drove back.  I stopped at a steep bowl of hillside called the Ring near Felindre for elevenses, and sat and watched the shadows of the clouds moving over the brown hillsides.  Slow-moving shadows, the hiss of the wind in the grasses, white and rust-brown moorland ponies.  And the thin trickle of stony stream that becomes the River Teme further down the valley.  Out of Knighton the Radnor Forest rose on the horizon, deep black gullies still hiding seams of old snow.