Fog gives walk a wonderful dimension Country Notebook

of remaining stems lining the path: dock and tall willow herb and the knapweed with hard spherical seedheads still intact.

The mist hung over everything. It felt protective, hiding us from the world which outside was beginning to celebrate, yet here was quiet shelter from the intrusive noise and nonsense of radio and television which seems to be the constant accompaniment of many on this day.

Only occasionally sounds attracted attention: the sudden whoosh of a flock of starlings; invisible excited geese on the water and somewhere a dog barking where work was starting on a neighbouring farm.

There was a limited palette of colour: brown, grey and green; yet this was an occasion to notice the many shades of each. An area of reeds close to the water was bleached pale, dramatic contrast alongside the rich rustiness of bracken fronds broken and battered by the autumn storms and a thicket of arching bramble stems of darkest umber. There was the grey of the mist and the darker water, while the lichens hanging from the wind-bent trees seemed almost blue in comparison.

The third colour in this limited palette was green: the surrounding fields of improved pasture – with dozens of molehills of dark peaty soil strung out like rows of button; the acid green of moss on the trees and the dark stands of pine and gorse.

The latter was in flower and suddenly I was startled by what seemed from a distance to be the thrown away skins of festive satsumas on the branches. Investigation proved these to be the brain fungus, so-called because of its crenellated surface. Among its other quaint names is witches butter. It is common on gorse but is not feeding on it but on another fungus that is itself feeding off dead wood.

I have a poor sense of smell so the only one that attracted my attention was where pines had recently been felled. With exposed stumps and sawdust on the ground there was a seasonal fragrance on the air.

The walk over, I had worked up an appetite for Christmas lunch but it was not yet ten o’clock.