A wet walk

Wet, grey and windy 

Wow, you can tell that this is a new blog, second post just a day after the first.

We've had a lovely gentle Christmas but I have felt somewhat trapped in the house. Every time I've looked out of the window I've been greeted with the sight of grey dreariness and the reminder that walking across the garden is like tip toeing across a wet sponge. But today I was drawn outside so on went the coat, hat and wellies. I walked up to our local river and just stood on the bridge, staring for a while at the twisting of the water whilst battered by the rain. On the way back, walking on a foot path around a field (image above) I recorded how I was feeling - I love the gadgets on my phone. Below is an edited transcript:

What a miserable day. What a vibrant day. It is cold, wet and windy and I'm going for a walk. I feel alive, I feel real. I'm looking forward to sitting by a fire with a cup of hot chocolate snuggled up with my boys, making soup for lunch and knitting socks. It's cold, the wind is blowing the rain across this flat landscape in flat sheets. I can feel my trousers sticking to my skin like icicles. The open skies are wonderful, it's bleak but... there's promise. There's promise of life, promise of light, that we have come out of dark winter and away from the SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Coming into the new year and refreshment, time to reassess, a fantastic time of year. Not a time to turn myself into a new person with false promises but a time to assess things and to think through what I really want and to appreciate what I already have.

Okay, I'm sludging through the puddles, each step is a slurp. It's a pity I'm wearing a hat really as I want to feel really open to the elements. Let me take my hat off, it's not raining too bad right now. Ahh, incredible. Even though it is still slightly raining I couldn't feel anymore alive, I feel refreshed, I feel washed, not quite renewed but on my way there. Energy refilled. With my hat on [it has a brim] it was like being in a cave and looking out. Now I feel open to the world, to the sky. I feel as if my hair has taken on it's own life and is reaching for the air to become one with it. My feet don't feel the same thing with the earth but that's probably because it's too muddy and cold for that.

Here my monologue ended and I took the above photograph. Not a great image with the rain on my camera but it does show the moodiness of the sky. I really enjoyed doing this, not an exercise I planned but the words help me to recall the moment.

I didn't have hot chocolate when home but I have had a snuggle with my boys and enjoyed a big pot of homemade mushroom soup with crusty bread. A good day, I may yet start on knitting the second sock.