(These trees remind me of the Hundred Acre Wood from Winnie the Pooh)

It’s a beautiful day today. Blue sky and puffy clouds. After TTB woke from his first nap I bundled him into the pushchair and told him that today we were going OUT. Ahhh it was so lovely to be out in the sunshine! We took a stroll down to the park, stopping at the bridge to show him ducks for the first time. Ducks! He was fascinated. (I wish bread wasn’t bad for ducks, I was looking forward to feeding the ducks with him!) We walked along through the park and I saw a family playing on the playground. Not many months until that’s us, although I’m sure we can pop him in a baby swing soon. I wonder what he will think of that. The sun on my legs was warm and I can’t remember the last time I felt happy about that, the last hot weather was in my last stages of being massive and pregnant and I did NOT enjoy the heat then!

The birds were singing and again I realised that the birdy voices had been missing for a while. They too sounded delighted at the spring like weather. The trees stood out against the vibrant blue of the sky and although their branches are bare, the slightest hint of new buds is in evidence. I have to walk to the side of the pram to keep the sunshine from TTB’s eyes, changing to the other side when we take the “quick route” across the park rather than up to the top and around. I can’t help myself from looking up, up, up as I walk along – I feel like I’m basking in the sunlight and nobody is going to stop me. Spring always feels like waking up after a long sleep and each year I am surprised that I have forgotten just how lovely it is to have blue sky, dry ground, warm sunshine and more colour in the world. I know that it’s not quite spring yet but it’s coming! There are tiny daffodil plants growing in the small patch of woodland, not yet flowering like the ones planted in the pots at the top of the steps. I stop at the top and turn around to see the view across the park, the fields, the hills and look at the way the hills fade into the distance.

We walk on into the town. TTB falls asleep (clutching his elephant toy) so I stop to tilt the pushchair flat for him. The Big House that I like has sold and I pass it feeling a little wistful. (I love “fantasy house” shopping.) In town I stop to watch the old offices be demolished (because I can never resist watching destruction like that) and then stop at the market: new potatoes, cherry tomatoes, asparagus, cucumber, 3 clementines with leaves on, a pot of tete a tetes and a primula.

Since coming home I’ve been looking out of the kitchen window at our beautiful view and just feeling so happy that we live where we do. It’s taken a while to really feel like home (mainly because of the house type problems), but it really does now.