Field Path

Tuesday was chilly, windy and grey and I wasn't enthusiastic to walk, but I told  myself I really should and decided to check the condition of the paths at the bottom of Vicarage Lane. They have improved a lot - still some muddy patches, but the fields no longer look too waterlogged to tread on, and the path beside the Nailbourne looked perfectly accessible with boots for as far as I could see. However, I was attracted by the field path, which heads up the hillside which I look at every day during the hours I spend at the table in the dining room. In other places where I've lived, footpaths followed hedgerows, running along field margins, and sometimes crossed meadows, but rarely struck out across the middle of a cultivated field. Around here, a number of paths do exactly that, and I've found them fascinating since we arrived. As the crops grow, the path continues to wind a narrow way between them; when they are cut and the ground cleared and ploughed, the path almost disappears for a time, but is gradually reinstated by the feet which walk it. It was firm enough, after a couple of fairly dry weeks, and I always enjoy the views back downhill to the village. I didn't get right to the top - I needed to be back for lunch - but I enjoyed the walk more than I anticipated. I had not been enthusiastic enough to take the big camera, but the phone photos will serve as sketches when I return, I hope in better light, to try to document this path for my personal project photographing local footpaths in black and white.