The Shock of Nostalgia

Went on one of my familiar walks today. The last time I did this walk, maybe three weeks ago, the fields were under thick snow, the usual sheep nowhere to be seen, and the bridleway had drifts of snow blown across it where there were gaps in the hedge.

As I walked up the bridleway today I got a nagging awareness that something was different, but this awareness was just a faint suggestion at the edge of conscious thought, like that fuzzy sensation you get a little while before you know that you're going to sneeze. Sometimes something can be changed in such a big way that you don't notice it consciously, as if your brain struggles to process the magnitude of the information.

Eventually, though, I realised that the huge field normally given over to sheep-grazing had been very roughly ploughed over.

I was surprised at how shocked I was, especially by the realisation that they must have abandoned sheep-farming on this site. That saddened me: I have always enjoyed the encounters with the sheep here, especially in the dusk and in winter.

But now all the gates were open.

I guess what saddened me was the sense that this change was irrevocable; that I'd had no warning about it; and that it was a reminder about how suddenly everything can change, and all things that you take for granted as eternal turn out to be ephemeral.

There's something so brutal and transformative about this sudden, total transformation of green grass into rough earth. All that power transmitted through tractor and plough to create a new landscape.