Walking in the Solstice Zone

 

Walking by the river the other day I realised that the solstice is more than a moment or a day marked on the calendar. It felt as if I entered a different place with a different atmosphere, one that side-stepped the framework of time. A stillness, a peacefulness, a pause, a sense of intimacy with the bare trees, the river, and the overcast sky with its range of subtle greys. This solstice zone. 

*

Dere Street is an old Roman Way which ran  from north of York, to the Antonine Wall. I’ve walked part of it before, from Harestanes to St Boswells in the Scottish Borders. This time I walk along the Borders Abbeys Way from Jedburgh, to where it meets Dere Street, where its arrow-straight path has the Eildon Hills directly in its sights. Perhaps it used them as a marker, a goal, two of them visible here from a slight elevation. 

 

In an emporium in Jedburgh I spot this fashionable young cyclist. And wonder if Peugeot still make bicycles?

 

Starting out by the river in Jedburgh I heard birdsong that I definitely associate with spring, a two-tone piping sound. It reaches that inner place of spring or heralding spring, and is another marker of the solstice zone. The walk then went uphill, away from the town, and the traffic sounds became distant and almost vanished. The clouds thinned and splashes of light fell over the land.

Eildon Hills seen from the south east

*
Weather reports are not always accurate and the other day it was forecast as cloudy but it turned out to be dazzlingly sunny. Everything was frozen, each blade of grass, each dried plant stalk, each twig of tree. The beauty of spiders’ weavings is decorated with frost, showing their delicate artistry.

 

Walking through Melrose, underneath some trees, there was a strange shower of rain which turned out to be not rain, but drops of ice like hailstones, falling from the branches, as it melted in the sunshine. 

Then over the Chain Bridge to the path on the far side of the river. 

A group of seagulls are enjoying the sun rays on the island stones in the river.

And further on, a heron stands on a grassy island.