Slow Journey County: Cumbria
Slow Journey Destination: Claife Heights
Slow Journey Distance Travelled: 0 Steps.
My immediate thought was of radioactivity. It was a series of unmistakable clicks. But where from? Standing on Claife Heights, overlooking Beatrix Potter’s favourite tarn (Moss Eccles), I was puzzled by this noise. The air was still, the tarn’s waters reflective, and a cold wintry sun sat low on the horizon, as if still trying to warm itself up, let alone anything else.
My breath remained suspended before me, reluctant to travel far on this stunning winter’s morning. It was admiring the view too.
But now my ears had latched onto this clicking noise, they wouldn’t let go. I gazed around, in search of the source. In the distance, a cloud bank had sunk into Windermere’s valley, a duvet beneath vast open clear skies. To my right a Herdwick sheep mowed the crunchy, frosty blades of grass.
I looked down at my feet, perched carefully on the icy ruts and stones of the bridleway. And that’s when I saw it: the binary bubbles falling like a waterfall, under a sheet of frozen moisture. The melting water caught tiny bubbles of air before they could escape through one ice hole, and pulled them down the bridleway, over stones, where, once at the bottom, they would be released into the atmosphere, through another ice hole.
These atomic, geiger-counter-like clicks was Mother Nature singing to me on this cold, frosty morning. It was a moment of sheer beauty, and I was the only one around to marvel at this magic.
Evidence, if any more were needed, that we should slow down at least once a day, and let Mother Nature sing to us. Enjoy. (and turn up the volume on your device.)
© Simon Whaley