Walking through memories and cornfields...

As soon as we get out of the car, we are greeted by the sound of summer – swallows chatting to each other - and then acrobatically swooping and soaring through the air, like airborne gymnasts. They are gathering on telegraph wires – a typical sight of late summer... What did they use as a gathering place in the days before these cables stretched across the sky, I wonder?

We walk along the dusty cinder path, past the meadow, and stop for a moment to watch the ponies – another of summer’s quintessential moments. As we stand and watch them graze and flick their tails every now and then, and blow through their velvet soft nostrils, my mind skips back over the years as I remember going to the pony field with Paddy our dog when I was a child – in those hot never-ending days of summer – wearing sandals and sundresses or shorts and halter-neck tops – and then cooling down afterwards in the paddling pool with ice-pops and lemonade... And then fast-forward a few years and memories spring to mind of taking Iona to the same pony field when she was a tot – and now here she is, a beautiful 16 year old, and here we are, standing watching ponies together...

My heart swells with gratitude because she’s still happy to do things like this with me. I’m so pleased that she didn’t go through the phase I went through as a teenager, when I avoided doing anything with my parents / as a family at all cost! We continue along the footpath, pausing to look at our reflections in a beautiful butterfly-shaped puddle stretching across the width of the path. Iona has to scoop up armfuls of her maxi-dress so it doesn’t get wet and muddy in the residue of last night’s rain.

I follow her along as if she’s some sort of woodland queen or fairy princess – Titania perhaps – and I’m the servant or maid, and I marvel at the fact that I’ve produced such a work of art. With her long red hair and flowing floral dress she looks like a supermodel on a photo shoot. We turn left and go under the bridge – it’s only now as I write this that I realise that this is maybe the first time we don’t stand underneath and go ‘Hellooo’ and listen to our voices echo back at us...

We continue on our way along the track, rosebay willowherb stretching almost over our heads on either side – the bright pink colours complementing Iona’s dress perfectly. Rosehips are beginning to replace the rose petals now and juicy blackberries look tempting too. Butterflies dance in and out of the hedgerows, along with hoverflies and bees.

We climb up the bank onto the footpath through the cornfields and again I’m hit by another wave of nostalgia. Walking through the cornfields with Paddy, down the network of footpaths behind the first and middle schools... the golden-yellow waves of nodding, whispering, dancing corn – the paths so narrow we had to walk in single file. The corn grew so tall that Paddy would disappear and I remember sometimes panicking that he might disappear for ever – then all of a sudden up he would pop, leaping in the air, tail wagging, tongue hanging out of his smiling mouth, as if he was saying ‘Here I am!!’

And memories flood back of holidays in Kent, visiting Auntie Pat. The summers were always several degrees warmer down there, and it felt so exotic to be able to even have breakfast outdoors... and the endless fruit farms – days out picking strawberries, raspberries and loganberries and eating so much while we were picking that we didn’t really want to eat any more by the time we got home ... I remember walking through the cornfields up to the cross at Lenham – a photo comes to mind of me wearing a little yellowy skirt and a  yellow T Shirt with a ladybird on – the cross is in the background – then Iona’s voice brings me back to the present day as she says ‘look mum – a ladybird!’

Summer 1975

We pause again at a gate and watch a bull standing proud in the distance. The bull in the field at Alnwick, just outside the cottage on the moors, ‘Old Mr Grumpy Face’, comes charging into my mind, and then the memory fades. We turn round and head towards the pond now, as swallows continue to provide the soundscape, along with the occasional bluetit and buzzing percussion of bumble bees. I watch a couple of herons fly past, over two swans and their cygnets and a flock of lapwings; then we continue along next to a field of long, delicate green grass, daintily swaying in the breeze.

The footpath comes out into the housing estate where we parked the car. We pause for one last time to admire a beautiful garden full of colourful cottage garden flowers and then we return to the car and head back home; both so pleased that we made the spur of the moment decision to do this... Another lovely summer stroll to add to the collection – the back catalogue - of memories, moments and snapshots from over the years...

Still feeling nostalgic, I almost feel like filling up a paddling pool when we get home, but maybe that would be taking things a bit too far!

Suggestion: Take time to go for walks - don't just walk though - write about it, talk about it, take photos, and do it regularly!