Weekend with family, and all of a sudden, people need to be in different places at the same time. Rather uncharacteristically, I drive one person back to cook, drive back, and set out on foot to catch up the others.
I don’t get many solitary walks these days. Not ones where you’re in the country already, and it actually feels like an outing. There I am, stomping along with the his and hers coffee flasks from the car, looking out for the others, but still, slowing a little on the inside.
The sunshine is lighting up any remaining bracken on the big bare hill that frames the view – that is the view, really. Some trees left with leaves on, most warm golds, others down to branches already, black by contrast. There are birds dotting around here and there. Golfers going about their Sunday morning business of hitting small balls from A to B.
Part of me is trying to catch up, and part of me doesn’t care too much. I am off duty. Mist is still rising off the tops of hills more distant. I stop, and have some of my own coffee, and try to soak in the moment – still autumn, not yet in the grip of winter. Crisp, with no need of deep and even.
All too soon, it seems, I hear the voices of the advance party. There are things to show me, including a golf ball sliced clean in half; a mighty boulder (or at least a medium sized rock) to hurl in the river. On the way back, there’s a large stick with a curve to it, and we spot the similarity to a bow, and set up a photo.
We are, as requested, working up an appetite for lunch. I am still peckish for more of my own walk, even as I join it to that of the others, and we head back to the car.