I’ve been feeling rotten. You’ll know the kind of rotten I mean. I was perfectly capable of getting on with life and researching my current book and even writing some stuff about the nature of the feather, but there wasn’t much fun to be had. I wasn’t exactly miserable. Just a little short of joy.
I went out for a walk round the marsh, not because I felt like it but because I thought it would do me good. In other words, I wasn’t expecting much. Come on, nature, do me good!
I stumped about for a bit, but I’d soon had enough of that and sat down on a bench. The sun was out, in a pale kind of way, and anyway, I was well wrapped up. And I saw such wonders as pigeons and jackdaws and heard a robin singing and what the hell’s wrong with that? What do you expect, a white-tailed eagle? Bonaparte’s gull?
I kept on sitting, partly because I didn’t feel like moving but mostly because sitting was increasingly all right. The world began to look slightly less shabby. And that cloud over there to the west, why was it undulating? Was it really a cloud? The binoculars told me the answer without compromise.
Geese!
A good two miles away and about a thousand of them, making a series of long, straggling chevrons across the sky, the first pinkfooted geese of the year. Now I knew they were there I could hear them, as if they had ever-so-slightly tweaked the volume knob: a yodelling honk repeated about a thousand times a minute.
Modest numbers by pinkfeet standards: sometimes in the high winter they cover the sky directly above us, several thousand at once, making complex patterns that surely make perfect sense in Japanese. They come from Iceland and Greenland because they love our gentle winters. Rejoice! Autumn is here and the voice of the pinkfoot is heard in the land.
So I did.
Just the inspiration I need this dank, painful morning. Thank you.
Glad it helped, Eurnie. Hope this morning was a better one!
Sometimes it doesn’t take much to lift us up, these little nuggets of joy make such a difference to our lives.
Good old nature!
I love the directness of your writing which seems to simply, but eloquently say it all and connect with me. Something always just pops out and catches my eye too when out walking or sitting, and suddenly the day is transformed.
Thanks Jo. Nature does that, doesn’t it?
Ah this is oh so beautiful…..your writing touches my heart. Thank you.
Thanks for lovely message
Bravo Simon.
I so miss your Times articles, first thing I read on Saturdays.
Best wishes
Jenny Bunn
I love your nature and travel writings but l personally very much miss your incisive writings on sport. You truly followed in the footsteps of Rex Bellamy!
Rex was one of the greast – and very kind to me.
Thank you, you have made my day.
Sounds like a nice moment. Geese are so substantial.
Glad Nature was able to cheer you up!
Hope it’s also cheering you!
That is so uplifting Simon, something we all need, thank you.
Thanks for kind words, Sylvia
I think yourself and Thomas Merton would have got on wonderfully Simon!
X
Charming as ever. Love the call of Pink Foots. Last heard them in Lancashire in January. What is your latest book about ? Do you have a working title for it ?
Wonderful. Just what’s needed. Raises our spirits, helps us ‘see’. I agree with the Thomas Merton comment. Thank you!
Thanks Sam. Glad your spirits are being raised!
There’s always something to see when we sit isn’t there…lovely words as usual – thank you, Simon
Now get on with that book.
Reminded me of My favourite poem by Mary Oliver The wild geese offer themselves to our imagination . I like the word shabby – sums up my experience of post viral covid
I’ve know that particuar shabbiness myself, but only as matter of a week or two — much sympathy, for it sounds as if you’ve knmow it for rather longer.