A family walk

Down through the forest and along the Withywindle, path winding close and secret through high green walls of fresh new reeds and comfrey, river sliding slow, deep and dark by the pathside, willows leaning, fluttering, clutching. Damselflies and butterflies flittering across the path. Sunwarmth. A low hum of insects. Damp earth and green smell. Silvery zigzag ripple of a grass snake in the water, then another, dead on the path, stripped to bone head-to-half and whole from half-to-tail, macabre reminder of death in life.

A good day.