BACK LANE

                                          

Just off the main road through the village and opposite the church is a narrow winding lane which is home to some of the prettiest houses in the village, it is called Back Lane. Today, tempted out by a few hours of rare sunshine I took a buggy ride along this picturesque and very hilly stretch of road.

Along the first few hundred yards are pretty cottages, stately Georgian houses rubbing shoulders with Tudor and Jacobean farms ,who's barns have been long since converted into dwellings for people instead of livestock. There is even an old |Fire Station where, many years ago a horse drawn fire engine was housed and this too is no a house.

Along the road side runs a pretty little stream and in order to reach their homes the owners must drive over their own personal bridge, the effect of which is rather like a moat and drawer bridge. Occasionally the stream floods and then the moat becomes a torrent and the lane a river, fortunately this does not happen often.

Further along the lane climbs steeply,causing my buggy to crawl slowly up the incline which becomes almost frighteningly steep after half a mile or so, the awareness that the road is too narrow for a car, let alone a tractor or delivery van to pass even my small conveyance tends to add spice to the journey....some times a little too much.

Now the steep sides of the lane, tunnel like in places open out and the view is spectacular, mile upon mile of rolling countryside, hills, woods and small villages are laid out like an enormous map and indescribably beautiful at any time of year.

Gnarled old trees line the road and in the hollows beef cattle, over wintering out of doors, gather at the field gates and sheep huddle for shelter beneath the hedges. Of course many of the sheep have now been moved to low ground for it is the Lambing season, a time when the sheep need extra care and shelter for their young ones.

At this time of the year farmers sleep little as lambing goes on round the clock and a few moments inattention can cost the life of a valuable ewe and her lamb.

As a child I took my turn in the lambing shed and I remember the warmth of the barn after the freezing cold walk from a warm bed along the wind swept farm yard. The excitement and the joy at so much new life,the sadness at the death of a lamb who's tiny body had resisted all efforts to revive it after a difficult birth. Lambs who had lost their mothers were usually bottle fed, but for some the old farmers had a trick of skinning a dead lamb and wrapping the orphan in it's skin before introducing it to the bereaved ewe, who almost always accepted the little creature as her own.

After a few days the skin was removed , the bond having been created all went well for the lamb after that . A bit of rural magic.

At the top of the lane, so little use to traffic other than the farmers who live on the hill top ,grass grows down the middle here and there and pot holes abound making for a bumpy ride, and now the view across the valley to the hills beyond is truly spectacular, The wide sky filled today with grey and white clouds adding its majesty to the scene, it is a fit backdrop for the Buzzards and Kites which wheel about on rising currents of air in search of any unsuspecting pheasant or partridge.

Flocks of gulls have come inland to escape for the coastal storms and starlings in great flocks congregate at dusk swirling against the darkening sky like smoke ,before dropping in to the woods and coppices to roost for the night.

Such grandeur is part and parcel of the daily round to a country man and I love these things with all my heart. Yet for me it is orten the small almost insignificant things which cause in me the greatest sense of wonder, tiny fragile snowdrops, huddled against an old wall, bravely announcing the approach of spring. The tiny leaves of sorrel, freshly green growing in the cracks between the stones and the rich patterns made by lichen which spreads across the old stones tapestry like, a forest in miniature.

The sun is low in the sky and suddenly it becomes bitterly cold and I turn towards home. Snow is expected and by Thursday theses same snowdrops may well be buried beneath it's icy carpet, but nothing can stop the arrival of spring, early or late it will come. These small signs are only the beginning, I take the last hill down in to the village at full speed and raise a yell of pure joy at the sight of some tiny honeysuckle leaves ,which echoes several times before dying  away in to the distance as the light begins to fade.