Deadlines no more

For the last nine years whilst working at the university, January 31st has been the deadline for filing the Transparency Review Return for which I was responsible. January went by in a blur of long hours, stressful meetings, last minute adjustments. Prior to that, I ran my own chutney business, so January 31st was also a stressful day, as it was filing day for self assessment tax forms. Many a time have I hand delivered the form to the tax office at 5.30pm. So there is a strange feeling of lightness in the air,  coupled with a nagging worry that I have missed something important, as for the first time in seventeen years, the last week in January is just another step on the way to spring.
This morning on the valley, it was mild and springlike, I saw two rabbits in the wood as I hurried on my way to the pond. Like a teenage girl hoping to see her crush hanging out on a street corner, my walks these days all head in the same direction as I hope that today the kingfisher will come out and display himself. Yesterday he flitted several times across the pond before settling on a branch overhanging the pond, as though posing for an illustration in a bird book. I couldn't get a photo, my camera is only on a mobile phone and not good enough for anything further than a few feet away, also by the time I have taken off the security code that I put on in a fleeting attack of  responsibility, any self respecting bird has flown off long since. Here is a picture of the overflow area of the pond though, looking very full since all the snow has melted.

Hoping that my coat was long enough to keep my bottom dry, I sat down gingerly on the grass and  for ten minutes waited for anything that might show itself. Although the kingfisher is my star attraction, the supporting players in the guise of little brown birds that flit in and out of the bulrushes were all out. If they would stay still long enough to get the binoculars to focus on them it would be a help. Out too were a pair of mallards, the duck I saw earlier in the month now being joined by a drake. I do hope there will be ducklings in spring.

 At this point another star player came into view as a red kite soared across the sky. By leaning back so I was lying back against the hillside I could watch its graceful trajectory. It was at this point that I realised how much my life had changed. Never in the last seventeen years, had I thought I would spend any time in this last week of January, lying on my back on the grass watching birds.