Christmas Crowds

‘Twas the Saturday before Christmas

 when all through the shops

the crowds they were pushing

and people were cross……………

So, instead we went for a walk during a break in the rain, about half an hour before it went dark. 

Still we encountered crowds………..

         Hundreds of ragged, black crows, cawing and cackling in the darkening sky, coming in from all points of the compass to settle in a stand of oaks.

                 Then, a familiar sound, like a hundred tiny football rattles - a troupe of long-tailed tits flitting through a gnarled tree, their long tails showing in silhouette against the last of the sky-light.

                Further on, a crowd of muddy sheep jostled in a field of bone-white turnip chunks.  Away from crows and long-tailed tits, the only sound was their ‘crunch – munch.’

These are the kind of crowds I love and when, to quote a line from Wendell Berry’s poem, ‘The Peace of Wild Things’………………

                     ‘I rest in the grace of the world and I am free.’

I hope you manage some time this holiday to slow down and enjoy 'the peace of wild things'.