Not yet spring

I saw a lapwing today
I saw curlews
and
gulls
and
oystercatchers

The walk along the estuary did us good. It warmed us and lifted our spirits. The sun warm on our faces warmed our souls as well and we felt good. It felt as though we had been together forever, that we were an old couple and we were…at 70 we were an old couple…it’s just that we felt as young as we were when we first met…only we knew each other now….

We walked along and my hips ached a bit, I kicked at the last of the snow and made the catkins on the hazel wiggle…he walked beside me, held my arm linked under his very tight…he wore gloves…he was silent…and after a while we sat in the sun for a while…could not say whether to rest him or me or both of us…I leaned my head on his shoulder and we both clung to this moment as if to preserve it forever…and then we turned back, past the hide to a bench that was taken on our way out…. we sat there a moment or two.. the bench fairly new, well preserved and freshly painted. It was Pat Walter’s bench. Pat Walter who loved this place. That’s what it said on the little brass plaque…in memory of Pat Walter who loved this place and who died in 2008.

I wonder who she was.

She loved this place and she shared it with us and we could see why she did…love it.

That’s what we want too, when we are no more. The one who was left would erect a bench to sit on…in memory and in love and remembrance…in a place we both loved…

We walked on then, no longer in silence…we talked and we laughed and we dreamed like the youngsters we once were…a long time ago.

We saw oystercatchers
and
the curlews called
a wren flitted into the hedgerow
the sun warm on our faces
not yet spring…
we were happy,
he and I