Fresh Air and February

 "Fresh Air"

Filey Daughter with once small boys now large boys still manages to get them out for Fresh Air every weekend , whatever the windchill in Filey . They often go to Cayton Bay or walk to Hunmanby Gap but this weekend Filey Country park was as far as they got. It was so cold. 

I am remembering how every Sunday afternoon in all seasons  our father would walk us up East Carr Lane to Fewlass's farm . At the time it seemed a monotonous dreary walk , a gravel farm lane , a few Windbreak trees only at Mr Baston's small holding  but always the promise of Sunday tea round the fire from the tea trolley.

 Sixty years later I am remembering the Yellow hammers and Skylarks, and occasionally the excitement of the tractor going past, but very rarely . Sunday was the day of rest . Sutton Golf Course was at one side of the lane as we walked over the bridge of Holderness Drain, but that held no thrall . Father walked slowly and we three girls were dutiful and polite, no running around , just a sedate stroll as we stopped occasionally to listen to the Skylark and guess where it would land . 

If one approached what one thought  was the nest site the lark could pretend it had a broken wing and hop off in a direction far a way from the nest . We could only walk in the field when the gate was left open, but we seemed to spend what seemed like hours standing and watching , trying to spot where the Lark had got her nest . 

It all seems so  magical now with hindsight . 

I am reading a delightful book which recalls all walks down the lane, and later all the walks in the Cotswolds near Cotswold Farm , where we stayed so many times with our small children in the 70s and 80s, watching Barn Owls and listening to noisy hedgehogs.

 The book , Meadowland : the private life of an English field by  John Lewis-Stempel is a delight , and responsible for my private delightful recalls . I could never describe East Carr lane to you , or Haycombe cottages nearby fields, enough to delight you the way John Lewis -Stempel does. That is why I am a humble blogger and he the 2015 winner of the Wainwright Prize . 

Grandsons will thankfully remember their fresh air walks when they are my age, beaches, cliff tops , and bracing wind:lots of it. They go home to tea too, to a log burning fire and warm beds , and like me probably late remembered Sunday Night Homework . Here I remember Your hundred Best Tunes with Alan Keith ,the BBC radio programme of Sunday evening choice for me , sitting in isolation in the dining room .with my Algebra and Latin verbs  .

Today I took a stroll to the Allotments , walking spouse to the Doctors for a  scan , I  had an hour alone before walking him back . I was glad he chose to walk, I would have taken the car , but he tried out pushing my Aged parent's Sholley on the icy pavements. I carried on with it to the plot , the Sholley being laden with heavy water bottles for hot drinks , prior to the Taps being on again. I loved being the first person to tread the snow. 

It too was a magical place. No rat footprints into the shed thankfully after my recent infestation, the Asparagus beds all snug under their straw , the temperature in the greenhouse at minus 1. 

I had hoped for the hot beds to be HOT but all my reading, planning and preparing has come to nothing . I shall have to try again . My friend Nigel has got his hot beds up to 47 degrees . I'm envious, but its Lent so I am going to learn from it.