iv. This is the landscape’s intimate hour, arranging itself for the day. Sky paling north east, the river responding with herringbone ripple as colours fade up. Each grass-blade’s tipped with dew; a low layer of mist slowly rolls riverward – and still the Morning Star hangs on. The first bird call’s a curlew’s, then honking from a fast vee of greylags heading upstream while a parliament of rooks squabbles erratically down. The double arch rings of the bridge catch the light, late mediaeval and strong enough still for 40 tonnes. Small birds start up in the bushes. Over Castle Stede a cloud of bats is darting in every direction: the whole colony drifts away west where the cloud bank is purple, their pinpricks of dark disappeared into dark. Jane Routh |