Wuthering.

It is one of my favourite words.

Today the wind wuthers gently. The sky is white-blue and the black geometric seed heads of Alexanders vibrate below swaying telephone wires. I am alone. Except for the dog who zig-zags between my feet, bouncing from verge to verge, chasing the scents trapped beneath the wind.

The hedgerows are ageing. They have become frail and ghostly in this September wind. Whole fields of red spindles of dock shiver on either side of the lane. Even the new growth is skeletal in form. The fish-rib-like leaves of Common Polypody ferns shine green behind the thinning brambles. This bony trembling landscape makes me feel oddly aware of my own solid movements. I feel too dense and too loping.

Without the usual companionship of little feet and babbling voices I notice how I, unconsciously, measure the world around me. These bones are filled with memories, none of them momentous, but in my own silence I register each one. The dog nuzzles the grass at the base of a gatepost where I saw two damselflies mating in June; as the tarmacked lane gives way to the rocky track I automatically call the dog closer, trying to keep her away from the heady black deposits left by the foxes I know frequent the top path; and as I near the crossing of paths by the hidden apple tree I think of the adder I rudely disturbed there two years ago when out for a run. I even fancy that I remember which spots along the path yield the sweetest blackberries. I am right half of the time.

It gives me something beyond joy to realise and take note of this personal and perhaps childish map I have in my head. In one sense it grounds me, gives me security and a sense of belonging and home. In another it excites me and reminds me of all there is yet to know beyond the white surface of today.

I head up the other side of the valley and the wind changes tone. As I move towards the cliffs it no longer wuthers. The wind’s singing dissolves into white noise met by the enveloping sound of an endless roaring tide below. The noise here is uncompromising, and any solidity I felt amidst the fragile hedgerows is instantly dwarfed by the ocean’s soundscape.

As we round the old quarry road, I manage to grab the dog just in time before she spots a kestrel, hovering at ankle height, five-feet from the edge of the earth. The russet feathers of its back are whipped by the wind, mirroring the rusty brackened slopes beneath it. While its feathers are pulled into a jagged violent dance, the tiny body within them remains motionless: a point of perfect stillness. It is out of time with all else.

The dog, it turns out, does not see the kestrel— or if she does she rightly assesses the danger of pursuit—instead, she runs off to roll in cushions of bleached, dry sea-thrift.

Perhaps the foxes have been here.

I let her go. I am busy adding things to my map.