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Published: October 6th 2021
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Day 547 of lockdown in its various forms . We have arrived home and things are returning to normal whatever that is . My walks continue despite not finding anywhere new to explore. I cover old ground . The road has reopened to Overton . The track along the riverside is open again . Natural Resources Wales pulled their fingers out and got the work on the riverbank completed in very quick time . What was assumed would take 8 weeks took a little over 10 days thanks to prompt deliveries and excellent weather conditions . There is a peace and quiet these days around the lanes . The birdsong is over and there is just the odd bird like sound from the fields plus the sound of the ducks on the river .
The great thug that is the Himalayan Balsam has taken over the riverbank and the field margins . No-one pulls the plants up before they set seed . I pull a few up along the way. If I catch them before they start to die then I have succeeded in keeping the colonies down . Sadly though I hear the popping sound and occaisionally I feel
something hitting my face . The seed heads which look a long way from bursting are in fact ready . Waiting for the slightest movement to set themselves free to reseed the field again next year . It is a pretty flower but it is not native and it is the worse thug that you could ever find .
The ivy is blooming and no doubt the scent is sending out signals for the wasps and flies to visit to pollinate. The hum of the wasps is all I can hear . Across the sky I see the tramlines where the planes are flying over . Things are changing slowly I thought as I walked . More planes in the sky than there were a few months ago . The government talking about vdiaccine passports and failing to follow up on them . Wales refusing entry to the young at nightclubs or sports events if they have not been double jabbed . Will it make any difference I wondered ? Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland are doing their own thing . I find my mind wandering . The sky is blue and the day is warm . A real
Indian Summer .
I have lost track of the number of days it is since lockdown . As I walk and I do little but walk these days I fail to find anything interesting to see . The houses of which there are few have little to recommend themselves to me. The style is similar. I see none of the differences I saw in Derbyshire . No different building styles to catch my eye. no strange house names nor interesting features int he gardens . Perhaps Covid has gone on too long . I wake knowing today will be the same as yesterday . As I walk the river bank it looks the same as it did a month ago although over time we have had rain and the Indian summer has long gone. The days are shorter , the mornings are darker and the curtains are being drawn sooner . The flowers are going over and the berries shrivelling . The butterflies apart from one or two Red Admirals have disappeared . The cob nuts , the acorns and the conkers lie on the ground and here and there is a covering of dead leaves . The Silver
Birches are turning a buttery yellow . Autumn is just around the corner . I wish normality would return and that itch is travel however short could be scratched .
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