Like a conch shell

Midwinter, Lostwithiel, Cornwall

I turn my ear to the wind like a conch shell and catch the wind inside it. Bracing against the loud noise and open space at the top of the sheep field where the stile crosses the fence. Wind in my face blows away the gloomy day.

The tractor print path is wetter now than this morning but I don’t care so much how muddy my boots get headed in this direction.

Wet. Reflections in puddles. The stream to town full and flowing fast. Rushing. A magpie flies away in the opposite direction.

I disturb a pheasant and he also flies up, his alarm breaking the day. His tail feathers rippling like a clasped handful of ribbons.

2 Christmas tree saplings look happy set aside each other. They make me smile.I hadn’t seen them there before.

A pile of autumn’s apples under the tree in the farm orchard form a perfect circle on the grass beneath. I wonder if they have been raked to such perfection or fallen there so neatly?

Yellow gorse flowers for the first week of January.