After a long winter the sun makes a sudden brief appearance and the trees cast shadows which move quickly across the hills.
Up on monkey island near the withered hand the bluebells are coming out again. There are many different apects of the woods around the hills here but only some small stretches of proper woodland remain, the rest having been replaced with conifers and suchlike. Monkey Island is only a few hundred yards long but seems bigger as the terrain is steep and boggy or tangled so it can be slow going up here, but slowing down is good and stopping is even better sometimes.
The walk is up and out of town and the fuss and busyness of it all drop away so all that remains are the birds singing and the other natural sounds. The town feels a long way away from here but it isn't really. Up here it is good to see the spring sun doing its work.
These particular shadows are quite a rare event as usually the sun is only this strong when the leaves are already fully open, so these bare branch shadows would not normally be seen.
Here are the first bluebells. There are not too many flowers yet but in a week or two they will all be there to see.
