Springtime.

A blue and beautiful morning but cold, all sunshine and silence except when I stand still, to listen very carefully.

There is the dim and distant hum of an aircraft engine. I look up and can see it heading North, France perhaps, silver in the sunlight but making no trail in the crystal skies. And across the valley, I can hear the clunk of goat bells.

Above me, the sky is clear azure and at my feet, there is a dewy tangled mass of small herbage, edged white by the almost-frost. Violets crouch in sheltered corners by the track. Bee orchids display their lures to early bumbles and here and there are the blossoms of hopeful almonds.

It is not yet Spring, but I can taste Spring in the air.