My early morning walk was a bit earlier than I intended – I misread my clock, thinking it was 8.30 but it was an hour earlier, the light must have woken me. I walked past the hawthorn grove again, no druids today, it’s one of their meeting places, I may have mentioned. Tiny leaf buds were just showing on the trees, and there was good smell of fresh earth. Here’s a notebook drawing of the last time I saw the druids, last summer.
Today Primrose Hill was already busy with runners, dogs and people stretching themselves on giant rubber bands attached to trees. Y was there with a grab-stick and a carrier bag, busily filling it with litter he’d picked up. His partner of many years died tragically two years ago. ‘I like to get out in the mornings,’ he told me, ‘mornings are still the worst.’ Overheard comment from man gazing intently up into space at the top of Primrose Hill: ‘it’s a harbinger of migration of course.’ What had he seen?