The countryside in May
Sarah Ryan enjoys the peace of an early morning walk along the riverbank and meets some familiar faces
Later today, the riverbank will be thronged with people: huddles of teenagers laughing and chatting; picnicking families, children giddy and smeared with ice cream; walkers with exultant dogs. But now, with the haze of early morning still hanging over the slow-moving water, it is quiet. I am the only person up. A fat bee buzzes past, and something unseen ripples the surface of the river.
The dawn chill clings to my skin, the damp air not yet warmed by the sun, only just beginning to climb above the trees. I have pulled a scruffy, oversized wool jumper on over my T-shirt. Its gentle prickle would have driven me mad as a child, but now I find it comforting. I never seem to overheat in it; the only jumper I have knitted. Beadlets of dew trace cool lines across my bare legs as I stroll along the curving edge of the bank. The river will travel through town, exiting the buildings in the straight walls of a canal, but here, upstream of the houses and shops, it carves its own path. I want to feel the cool earth and soft grass beneath my feet, so bend down to unlace my plimsolls. My toes tingle with the cold, but I am snug enough in my jumper not to mind.
A place to feed
One evening last summer, I came along this same stretch of river after dark. My companion and I turned off our torches and walked by starlight, but the rustle and low of a large creature, surely a cow, prompted us to flick on the light. Two small glassy eyes shone from across the water. The creature they belonged to, small and lithe, slipped along the bank close to the water’s edge, over and under roots without pause. There was no hitch to its flowing movement; its perfectly fluid rhythm; just a pause every now and again as it dipped into the water and climbed back onto the mud. It crossed between water and air like a skilfully wielded needle threading under and out of the fabric. I meet the cows now, clustered together by a hawthorn, browsing ankle deep in mud. Frothy cow parsley borders the hedgerows, which run out, every now and again, at right angles to the river, disguising the wire fences which separate the meadows. As a kissing gate clanks closed behind me, I pick one and tuck it into the band of my hat.
“Flow soft River, gently stray, Still a silent waving tide O’er thy glitt’ring carpet glide” Mary darby robinson, ‘ Lines Written by the Side of a River’
The meadows end by a small village, where the track disappears into a tangled wood. I turn around when I get there and retrace my steps, wanting to make the most of the wide skies and sunshine which is gradually warming my skin. It is becoming a perfectly hopeful, almost-summer day; the kind of day made for lemonade and shared lunches. As I warm up, that woolly prickle starts to become irritating, so I pull off my jumper and carry it with my shoes dangling at my side.
Sound of summer
Where the river is at its widest, and the bank drops to the water in a short, muddy cliff, I stop and sit down. With my folded jumper as a cushioned seat, I slide my bare feet into the cold water. They numb instantly, and I watch them, strangely pale, wavering and distorted by the river. When a swift darts down from the sky to catch a sip of water on the wing, I almost miss it. It pulls immediately upwards and disappears: a tiny brown speck, beyond the trees. But then it swoops back around, makes a loop and dives again. It has travelled all the way from Africa, and its arrival is one sign that a warmer season is on the way.
Sarah Ryan grew up in the Scottish Borders, climbing trees and poring over wildlife books. Those habits have little changed and she still makes time daily to get out into the woods nearby, or at weekends to venture further afield. Inspiration comes from Roger Deakin, Nan Shepherd, Kathleen Raine, Chris Watson and outside the window.
“She wanders lowing here and there, And yet she cannot stray, All in the pleasant open air, The pleasant light of day” Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘The Cow’