Blue on Blue

Each day when I climb the stairs and come and sit at my desk here, overlooking the Great Ouse, the river is different. As I look now it’s just about high tide and there is just a slight movement of the water from right to left - that is, up-stream. The visible currents and eddies that are there when the tide is rising or falling are gone, and are replaced by a gentle rippled effect of the wind. Strangely, there is one spot of white - a sea gull resting on the water and moving slowly with the tide. The rest is blue - a serene and calm blue.

Looking further I come to the other shoreline - now at high tide the mud flats are covered with water and all one can see is the top of the dyke bank, which is grass covered. The other side of the bank are trees - I know that there are houses there too, but all I can see from this vantage point are the tops of trees - one rounded oak stands in the centre of my field of vision, to its left the spiky tops of some sort of fir tree, and to its left what looks like a double crowned tree - maybe an ash? - but in reality will most likely be two trees close together.

And then the sky - the blue hazy at the horizon, but deepening as I look up - a totally blue sky this morning with not even the hint of a cloud. It looks like this will be another bright day here in Nelson’s county. There are just a few birds - mainly common and black headed gulls - swooping around and down to the water - never actually landing, just swooping.

And signs of human life are starting to appear, someone walking a dog on the opposite bank, a fishing boat going out to sea, and on this side of the bank, more cars going past, and pedestrians passing.

Even in the time I’ve taken to write this, it looks like the tide is now slowly starting to go out, although without the drifting seagull to show direction it is difficult to be sure. But one thing is for sure, I will never get bored of the changing faces of the river.

Morning has broken.

A couple of days ago I was awake for no obvious reason around 4am, and noticed that the sky was already getting bright. By 5 it was looking so nice outside that I decided to jump out of bed, throw on some clothes, and go for a dawn bike ride.

I start out along South Quay, and the tide is low - very low and at a bend in the river the mud flats are covered with sea birds. I take the loop around Boal Quay, and then am back on the cycle path that runs along the Great Ouse. The sun is barely over the horizon and I peddle vigorously to get warm, and soon I’m out under the main road - already busy with commuter traffic - and slow down as I see a pheasant on the path ahead! I’ve never seen pheasants on this path, but I assume they are in the fields around. Soon the cycle path leaves the river and goes onto a track through farm land with hedges on both sides and I slow and stop to watch rabbits hop away, flashing their white tails at me as they do, and more pheasants in their bright feathers. Out here it is peaceful, majestic and wonderful - and I can even ignore the paper mill they are building behind me, and look out over the fields instead.

I get to the end of this lane, and the cycle route now goes out onto the country roads. Normally I’ll take this back, but I don’t want to lose the freedom that I feel right now, and having to be conscience of traffic would do that, so I just turn my bike and go back the way I came. I am new again to biking after maybe 30 years, and still a bit cautious and there are these barriers that are, I assume, meant to stop cars coming down the cycle path - they are about 6 feet tall, wide at the bottom and suddenly narrowing towards the top, they look like an inverted wine glass shape. They are about handlebar width plus 6 inches, and I've never felt confident about riding through them, so have always got off the bike, walked through, and then got back on again. Well, this morning I decide it’s time to face that fear, and so I rode through them! I have to really concentrate to get it right, but I am getting there. In all I was out for about an hour and was really warm and sweaty by the time I got back home, I laid back down but couldn't go back to sleep, which meant I was really tired when I went into work at 2pm!!

- - - - - - - - - - -

This morning I sleep later, and when I wake heard a noise that I couldn’t immediately identify, and then I realised it was rain drops on my window. I put on my robe and go out into the conservatory - this is one amazing morning!! There is no wind and the rain is just a gentle falling of water - it reminds me of a hymn we used to sing “soft, refreshing rain”. The conservatory is all glass, and the sound of the rain on the roof is just the sweetest soft sighing. My little pond and bird bath are getting a nice fresh re-fill too, without my intervention for once. I notice that I’ve left the door of my shed open a bit, so go out to shut it - my feet get wet, but the rain on my head really is soft and refreshing!

Coming back in I stand in the conservatory just “being” for a while, and think I must have got wetter than I thought, as rain drips from my hair onto my back. Then it happens again, and I realise it’s not me, it actually is dripping in here. There are just a few drops of rain coming from the central point where the sloping glass panels meet. It’s not much, and I put a couple of pails down to catch the water - it’s certainly not enough to spoil this soft and refreshing morning.

As I sit here now at my desk looking out over the river it looks like the rain is easing off, and from a practical perspective this is good because I need to go out to work later. But the feeling, scent and sound of this mornings soft refreshing rain will stay with me, I hope, as I get into the practicalities of the day.