I'm a woman

I'm a woman
Photos copyright Laurence Gouault
No reproduction on other media without the photographer's permission.

Friday 7 February 2014

Ordinary perfect. By Stevie defect Haston.



What's more ordinary than a walk? Nothing! So I am depressed, it's low cloud, drizzle and grumpy me is going to go running, but not looking forward to putting waterproofs on. I prevaricate. 
Laurence comes home from the market and says there's good weather coming, so why dont I go up the mountain and check the snow? Yea, maybe, it might be ok, etc, what ever, but I get ready.



So the hill infront of zee house is an ordinary montagne à vache as we say in French, it's 1200 meters up and indeed in summer there's horses, sheep and cows right on the top. But before the top there's a mystical beech forest, then there's a grove of birch, and then a few lonely gnarled junipers. And today it was sublime.



The walk up the though the beach had lots of animal tracks, as in winter the animals come down for food. there were chamois tracks, badger and fox and I got to see one young deer. Some birds were chirping lower down, but it got colder as I got higher, and then at a certain point you know life stops apart from visitors.



The reason for the walk?  Exercise? Checking conditions? Therapy? Well, to the left of the ridge is a deep bowl and it fills full of magical fluff, and theres good riding in there, and the view from the top can be good, and it's better than a run.


Cold it was, the camera thingy froze, Laurence caught me up, and she drank all my water, she always does that! But she did tell me to go for a walk, so I thank her.



These birch all had a wind mark of snow, but it was melting as we went down, some of the most beautiful stuff is very ephemeral, a bit like a human life as viewed thru geological time. A shame that we are distroying everthing in our short orgasim of existance. But today I don't care, I had a very ordinary pleasent walk. Tomorrow I might ride the big bowl which is full of windblown fluff, which wont be ordinary, it will be the ride of the Valkyries, but then words are never that trustworthy a thing, and the bilberies under my board wont even know I have passed, and the last wind knarled juniper which is older than my great great grandfather wont even flutter as I pass.