Thinking back on the year in an autumnal sort of way. I posted this photograph on 1st. January with the caption "Time and tide, North Kent coast". Little did I know what the year had in store.

 

 I remember walking among the Wild Daffodils and Wood Anemones at Lesnes Abbey in mid-March. The implications of Covid and the proposed lockdown were just starting to sink in. And yet the springtide was glorious.

 

 Needless to say rural rambles were put on hold. But that did focus my attention on things closer to home. For example I saw a fine display of Wild Clary on Windmill Hill in Hitchin (my home town). I have walked over Windmill Hill many times in my life. Somehow I have never noticed these drifts of blue before!

 

 Likewise there were no field trips to the middle of nowhere. Instead I revisited some familiar landscapes like the Pegsdon Hills and Knocking Hoe where the Chilterns escarpment meets East Anglia. Familiar but always new.

 

 Nature and fine summer days were certainly a great consolation. Summer turns to autumn, autumn turns to winter, winter heralds spring. Time and tide.