Summer earlies.

Mid summer 2021, Walking across the fields to Lostwithiel, Cornwall.

The sun shines low through the hedge, it's still early yet. Makes flower head shadows across the tarmac in the lane. The air is already warm and there are gentle bird sounds of a waking summer's day, less urgent than Spring.

Cross the main road, no cars yet and into the warm, cereal smell of hot land like fresh baked bread. Earthy, wholesome and nourishing. This field has been recently scalped. Pale and yellow dry compared to the verdant hills beyond. A tractor sits static now in the lower field, behind it smoke comes from a cottage chimney and I wonder who would be having a fire on a day that promises to be as hot as this one?

I make my way up the lane out into the rolling grassy field where the sheep stay. A bird mews high, cuts a clear note through the butter air. There is a lazy stillness to the day, even the usually worried sheep do not move away, keeping to the shaded edge of the field under the oak hedge.

I squat amongst the patchy stands of long brown grass in the waste ground between two fields, marking my scent on the day and this morning. Wishing I did not have to go to work but could only walk and walk into the gentle hills, cool woods and shady lanes.

First through the long grass gets the wettest legs, first along the holloway brushes down the spider's webs.