The spring flowers are multiplying rapidly – primroses, violets (and white ones), wild strawberry, wood anemone, tuberous comfrey – it’s all happening around Church Preen

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A bit of both today – a stiff breeze blowing light showers across the countryside. Walking past Hurst Farm and on towards Shirlett, it would have been good to complete the loop to Shirlett Lane and return to the car down Round Hill – but I suspect we’d still be floundering in the mud (we had a drop of rain last night). Instead, where the track ends, we’ll turn and retrace our steps. The views are different in the other direction…

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Feels like it too, this morning – warm sunshine, puffy white clouds, slightly cool but not cold. We’re enjoying a short wander around Astley Abbotts and Colemore Green, past the fishing pools and back up the field towards the old school house.

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Same as last week! About a mile and a quarter along Rowe Lane there’s a huge puddle. We’ve met it before, after heavy rain, and last time we got through, but this time it seemed deeper and there was no way along the verge – the hedge would have pushed one of us in (and I’d have been in trouble)… So we’re retracing our steps to head across the fields to Holdgate, and apart from new views, we see one (sadly, dead) fox, one hare (very much alive and too fast for the camera), two herons (flying over) and a tree full of cormorants. We also see the back of Hall Farm at Holdgate, which seems to be built around the remains of a castle, complete with arrow slits (loopholes?) for archers. Like last week’s flooded ford, the puddle did us a favour!

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Sunshine and showers! An afternoon in the vicinity of Cardington, walking up to Willstone, where the red kites provided quite a display for us, then along the lane to Chatwall. Five minutes on the chocolate seat – and then it rained. We didn’t get very wet, and we’re reasonably waterproof…

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…and Ironbridge. Making the most of the sun’s warm rays – the morning going to be the best part of the day, I think (so does the Met. Office). Last week’s snow is a muddily rushing through the Severn Gorge – are we in for another flood?

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It’s a regular route for us – until we come to the ford. The mid-week snowfall has been melting rapidly since yesterday, and there’s no way we can reach the footbridge over Bullhill Brook. “Let’s try the path through the fields, and hope it’s not too muddy”. It isn’t, and it proves to be a very enjoyable way through pleasant farmland. Ascending through the woods, a couple of deer quietly trot away from us (no chance of a photograph). Now we’re on the quiet road from Kenley, with views to Wenlock Edge, heading back to the start.

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It’s hazy too, but at least there’s no wind. More like January than early March – just a few primroses at the foot of Round Hill to remind us that it’s spring…

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A fine, bright but cold afternoon – it’s good to be out on the quieter side of Much Wenlock. There are one or two others about, all of them dog-walkers (possibly wondering where ours is?), but they’re well-behaved and seem to know where they’re going. The dogs are OK too.

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It’s starting to appear on the blackthorn, the startlingly white blossom that in autumn will bring those bitter almost-black fruits, the basis for many a bottle of sloe gin. Like yesterday, it’s cold, but there’s enough sunshine to make us comfortably warm, especially when sheltered from that north-easterly breeze.

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