Blossoms and blooms

What a beautiful day to be walking among the blossoms and blooms of the forest. The warm sunshine and gentle breeze brought the delicious scent of gorse, followed by the sickly sweet scent of hawthorn. Rowan and holly are in full flower, and ancient trees are bouncing back into lime green canopies. Oak apples are still soft on the trees, and bracken is unfurling to full height, where a roe deer thought she was wandering unnoticed.

With views beyond the forest, over hillforts and barrows, on a clear day like this, you can see where the land meets the sea.

Footpaths and animal tracks are scarred into the landscape from the millennia of hooves and hunters, but the only thing I am hunting on my joyous walk is a connection with the land and the ancestral paths that crisscross over it.

Ponies appeared hot on the hoof as if being hunted, but I couldn't see what reason they cantered past and out of sight. However, they quickly came to a halt to graze, so nothing too concerning!

Bogs and mires earn respect with their enticing verdant grasses, flowering cotton grass wafting on the breeze, bog beacons, and bog myrtle coming into leaf. This time of year, they try to tease you with their beauty, and folk that cannot read the landscape often get caught out and caught up to their knees!

I safely stayed on the dry, sandy path to admire the abundant sundew on the heathland banks before ending my beautiful, sensory walk with dry feet and a happy heart.