On such a dullish day…

I went for a walk this lunchtime. Not far; just along the road and around the corner. I needed some air, wanted to feel some space, lose the dullness of the day. I get like that sometimes.

It’s that time of year, of life; sunny one minute, big black clouds the next, the threat of the storm at any moment at the drop of a hat or a leaf. Walking under big trees, leaves falling in the breeze, struck by how quickly things change. Where was the green? When did these browns arrive to oust them?

I cut across the little park, the light playing on the leaf strewn grass, grey squirrels playing in the branches. I doubt it play, probably about some serious business; gathering, scavenging, staking out old territory, warning off predators - me, that jay, a passing cat. Squirrels no more play than scamper; life is far more serious, harder - no time to play for them. Their scamper only a silly word we give to their reality of running to keep alive, keeping away from all the things that want to maim and kill them.

Through the park, down the dirt track lane at the back of the houses sitting on the brow, then back out and onto street just as the sun cuts through the leaden blackness of the heavy metallic sky catching the pavement with a ray, passing light across the wet black tarmac - as all at once the path blooms into life.

Colour on colour on colour – scarlet, ochre, yellow, pink, vermillion, orange, brown - a natural confetti mix of colour and shade. Just leaves; strewn as if some strange wedding had taken place only moments before my arrival. The old Green Man pledging his troth to a Dryad maid with a wink and this bright carpet of leaves – left as reminder of what had been before.

I laugh aloud to see such colours strewn about my feet and brightening, lifting up my life for just a passing moment on this, and such a dullish day - and is this rain upon my face?

I get like that sometimes.