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A strange thing. I've just been out blackberry picking with the children (loads of berries - don't kids go out and pick them anymore? When I was a kid those bushes would have been stripped daily. But I digress...) and, despite living in this village for over 10 years, found myself somewhere that I'd never been before.
We started out up a bridleway that leads out of the village, a path that I've been along many times. I saw a gap in the hedge with an obvious path leading through it, followed it, and we found ourselves in an area of woods and small fields that I've never seen before, and wasn't aware existed. We followed paths through patches of woodland obviously growing over some old earthworks and moats, found a huge hollow old oak tree, and finally popped out in one corner of a cul-de-sac near our house that I've never been down before, because, well, it doesn't go anywhere.
It was just like stepping into another world, almost like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. I had no idea where I was going to end up, was totally disoriented/disconnected from my 'usual' mental map of the village. We met no-one, and the feeling of strangeness was heightened by the sound of distant thunder, lending an air almost of menace to the whole expedition.
Strange and wonderful. And magical, in a shiver-down-the-spine, fairy-tale-but-not-the-fluffy-kind sort of way.
We started out up a bridleway that leads out of the village, a path that I've been along many times. I saw a gap in the hedge with an obvious path leading through it, followed it, and we found ourselves in an area of woods and small fields that I've never seen before, and wasn't aware existed. We followed paths through patches of woodland obviously growing over some old earthworks and moats, found a huge hollow old oak tree, and finally popped out in one corner of a cul-de-sac near our house that I've never been down before, because, well, it doesn't go anywhere.
It was just like stepping into another world, almost like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. I had no idea where I was going to end up, was totally disoriented/disconnected from my 'usual' mental map of the village. We met no-one, and the feeling of strangeness was heightened by the sound of distant thunder, lending an air almost of menace to the whole expedition.
Strange and wonderful. And magical, in a shiver-down-the-spine, fairy-tale-but-not-the-fluffy-kind sort of way.