You can feel it

I was supposed to go swimming this morning. We were. Except although someone had assumed the moral high ground when someone else decided they weren’t going to the gym, somehow when 06:45 came this morning they were still fast asleep with a pile of dogs on their bed and bleary when they came to the door.

Swimming was off. I took the dogs out for an hour instead, without even pausing to wonder why I’d woken at five fifteen, why I’d only half finished my tea, why I was even up at this time.

We went down the alley and into the football field, then down through the woods and along the lane. Then at the end of the track we turned down towards the river and back along the bullrushes path before we headed back up into the trees that have grown over the gravel pits, or quarries, or whatever these holes in the ground actually were, once. Somewhere to walk dogs. Somewhere for children to play, but not at this time of the morning.

The bigger dog made friends with one dog, then tried to eat another one, so pretty much the same as normal. Yesterday when we were out he had to defend himself when another dog leaped at him. Its owner said ‘I thought he was going to do that.’ Nice of him to stop it happening, or it would have been if he had.

And for all that, the missed swimming, the half-drunk tea, the dog episode which is going to need a whistle and some biscuits to sort out sooner rather than later, I could smell the Spring.

Someone was still asleep when I dropped the dogs off home. Or just about awake enough to murmur and smile. Another day starting. Another journey begun.