April, come she will

It must be spring; for the first time this year I went walking wearing a t-shirt, instead of a jumper. We walked from Durham to Finchale in warm sunshine: through Wharton Park, all daffodils and long views over the countryside, past the DLI, where the moorhens were chasing each other round the pond (heads down and rumps in the air), through the farm where there were lambs in the fields - at last (they've been starting to appear over the last couple of weeks, but it's that long since we've been walking) and the woodland where the white flowers are in bloom - drifts of windflowers underfoot, and a frosting of blackthorn blossom in the hedges. We crossed a stile through a hedge golden with pussy willow and lunched by Brasside Ponds: somewhere new to us, larger than we'd expected, and crowded with birds, geese and ducks and gulls and moorhens all honking and hooting and crashing from sky to water and back. Then the long walk round the prison and down the road to Finchale, crowded with visitors picnicking and splashing in the river but apparently uninterested in the priory ruins, which we had pretty much to ourselves.

Back along the road to catch a bus home, watch Doctor Who having altogether too much fun with William Shakespeare. And when Doctor Who finished at 8 o' clock, it was still light.