Beginning – Yikes!!!

Great Walk – purpose was to write a story

Nick and I went for a walk as part of the course we are doing.
I put on my boots which I had left outside the front door.

Having done up the laces and ready to go I waited for Nick near the front of the driveway as he was taking photos.
Turned right to walk towards Knaresborough road and right again. Walked down with Nick, crossed across as no traffic coming and the lights in our favour.
Turned left onto the lane going towards the entrance to the walk we had planned to go on.
Scrambled across the stile and onto the green field.

We continued walking across the field lined almost on all sides with beautiful trees with their upper branches and leaves swaying gently in the breeze and across to the next field which is usually boggier.

Mainly dry and looking out for horses that we usually see. At first, could not see them.
Then there they were more spread out than usual. Walked past the area that they were kept in. Usually, the bigger horse tends to seek attention, but not this time as it was further away.

Walked through the next field listening to birdsong and I arrived into the most beautiful Field of Barley with some poppies springing up with their bright red faces amongst the green and parts of the ground slightly muddy from yesterday’s rain.

A little dog suddenly brushed past my lower leg, His master whistling and shouting in a firm voice“Oscar, come here!!”. Oscar, kept on going, his dark hairy body, streaked across the green tall lightly swaying barley, hidden at times from view and then there again. Watching it triggered a memory of a child’s painting free of inhibition, flashes of streaks of black and white against a rich sea of green and a miniature dog-dragon flying away from it’s prisoner.

The image faded away and back to the present as the man stopped by me. Calling Oscar now in a slightly edgy voice, a little out of breath and his forehead clothed in frown wrinkles.

Oscar had disappeared from view.

Signs of paw prints reminded me of ‘happiness is paw prints in the mud’ quote by my son Crispin.