A Cloudy Day

Yesterday I never saw the Sun behind the clouds. They were so low that everything was misty. I went out for a walk. Nothing special, just across a few fields and along a few quiet lanes. It was like walking in a dream. Not like the dream walking I’ve been practising a lot lately, though I think that helps me see things even when I’m not doing it. This was a walk through mud, over rusty gates and through a couple of messy farmyards. There was one place on a wooden footbridge over a rushing river that had a ‘picture postcard’ view with snowdrops on the banks. But mostly it was a grey day with no leaves on the trees, few flowers in bloom and the long views across the hills lost in cloud. But I felt so close to everything. When someone got off a noisy tractor and exchanged a few words it was like we were exchanging tokens of a secret pact, though I only know him slightly and I’m sure he was just being polite. How magical the ordinary, even drab world at the end of winter, can be. So real and at the same time so like a dream.