Читать книгу Walking in Kent. 40 circular short walks and day walks онлайн

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Some days we’d take a clifftop path with a view across the Channel to France; on another we’d be tracing the Greensand Ridge, the Weald spreading into remote distances below and beyond. There were woodland walks, walks that took us through orchards, vineyards and (rarely nowadays) the once-ubiquitous hop gardens. Our paths have drawn us through fields of barley, wheat and oats. We’ve wandered beside streams and rivers, watched kingfisher, heron and more ducks and geese than we could count, and listened on so many outings to the mewing cry of a buzzard. A fallow deer has sometimes crossed our path; we’ve stood for ages, barely breathing, to study an adder curled asleep on a half-cut log in the sunshine. One morning I watched a mother ewe licking clean her moments-old lamb as she expelled the after-birth into the grass behind her.

We’ve been walking in all weathers: in winter, muffled against the cold, frost on the ground, elm and oak producing stark outlines, naked without their leaves. In spring we’ve almost tiptoed among cowslips as a fresh breeze huffed along the Downs. In summer heat we’ve waded through waist-high grass, elbowed aside the nettles and gathered blackberries. In autumn we’ve scuffed dried leaves and picked sweet chestnuts. The changing seasons have been marked by what we’ve seen in the hedgerows; welcoming spring’s celandine in meadow and bluebell in woodland shaw; summer’s dog rose and elder in flower; autumn’s old man’s beard and softening sloe.