It’s my first walk after Covid. Here in Scotland, we still have to self-isolate for 10 days, and because I live with a GP husband and a lodger, that meant sticking to a couple of rooms and only sneaking down to the kitchen with mask and disinfectant spray when they were out. I even stopped patting the dog.
On my last walk before my positive test, the strath was deep in snow, every tree cloaked in white, the forest silent. Now that I’m out again, the world is transformed. Scraps of snow still linger on the hills, but the valley is clear. Today the sun beams from its pale-blue sky and the cohorts of clouds look too lazy to do very much.
