At the top of the hill

Friday morning was bright and beautiful, and I walked up the lane opposite to the top of the Downs before lunch, enjoying the best of the weather. At the top of the hill, where the lane flattens and becomes a track into the woods, a flattish field runs to the edge of the woods at one side, with a steep drop down to the next valley at the other. The ancient trees on the edge of the wood are still burnished copper, with their gnarled trunks and branches lit even at this time of day by low winter sun. The clouds were wonderful, moving relatively quickly across the sky in a beautiful range of white, greys and slatey blue-mauves and towering above the tree tops, echoing their shapes. There's an extra, because I couldn't decide. While walking up the lane, I paused to watch a squirrel watching me and a fast-flitting flock of small birds which may have been goldcrests - they were silhouetted against the light, but the size seemed right, and I've seen goldcrests here before. 

It was my most enjoyable walk for a while, and the rest of the day was pleasant too. J had arranged an online chat with a friend and fellow AAC user we have both known for twenty years: they met as ten year olds at one of the earliest 1Voice residential events for children using communication aids. A mutually supportive peer group of young non-speaking disabled people grew up together through those annual events, and many of them, now in their twenties and early thirties, have gone on to do good and interesting things while staying in touch (as have their parents) through social media and occasional events. Later, after a few jobs in the kitchen and on the computer, I soaked in a hot bath and enjoyed P's tastily filled tofu and mushroom wraps and a bottle of Erdinger Dunkel.