"There's such an air of spring about it"

Tuesday 24th February 2026

Amongst numerous recent diary entries I have had a hearing test and been given hearing aids. That stemmed from not being able to assimilate conversations in the environment of a two hundred guest wedding between Christmas and New Year, otherwise I can hear pretty well in normal one to one convesations, and I can hear the birdies sing. But the hearing test, and its science said I was severely deaf in one ear, and well on the way with the other - all very strange.

Although I haven't recently had the good fortune to emulate Ella  -  "I can hear a lark somewhere sing about it" - I have been able to hear more of birdsong in general when I had thought that was at a satisfactory level before. On top of that I can hear the carpet scrunching under my feet and any rustling or crinkly paper emitts an incredibly high pitched kind of crackliness.

So yesterday at last I was able to take a break from my model making ( currently a Red Arrows Hawk trainer) and head off on a long awaited walk.

The appearance of crocus, snowdrops and daffs  is a short lived event that I did not want to miss and I was reasonably well rewarded.

 

All Saints church, Underbarrow

Challenging graveyard terrain?

Leaving the tarmac

Crocus and snowdrops

Zoom to Underbarrow village

I imagined a giant had been employed as a wall builder - Tranthwaite Hall farm

Down to a ford where...

I thought I was going to get wet feet, but...

...saviour.

Lindreth Brow cottage. I was a couple of hundred yards off route but that error serendipitously provided a perfect lunch spot just the other side of the far hedge, see next photo

Anticlockwise from Chapel Bridge

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I saw Ella st St. George's Hall in Bradford in the early sixties perhaps a bit earlier than the time of this recording - a highlight of my lifetime.

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