As I Walked Out One May Morning

Oliver woke me this morning around 4.30, I slipped into his bed to soothe him and he was soon asleep again which left me lying watching the dawn and trying to listen to the dawn chorus through the sound of Oliver snoring (he has a cold). I decided to get up.
Consequently I was up with the sun

 It was amazing on the valley  at this time, experiencing the world of activity that goes on when the people are not there. I saw three rabbits, going lippity lippity, not very fast, until they saw me and scarpered. There were clouds of cherry blossom everywhere (excellent for bees)

Clumps of cowslips

And some early bluebells:

As if to emphasize how much nicer it all was without humans, I came across evidence of their destructive presence. This is most likely where a stolen car has been set on fire:

And it was whilst gazing at the absolute beauty of the mist rising from the pond in the early morning sunshine trying to work out who has a contemplative beer and then tries to spoil the scene for everyone else by chucking the empty can in the water, that I disturbed a heron that flapped slowly away across the valley.

Trying to follow a pair of mallards who were waddling away from the pond, I came across a fox trotting purposefully aware, clearly he had business elsewhere.
Finally I climbed the hill that we sledged down in March to take a picture to show the difference that six weeks can take. Here are the trees covered in cherry blossom with the city in the distance and looming across the photo is my immense shadow. Rosie is currently working hard trying to finish illustrating our children's story about two creatures who are tormented by their own shadows. Given the size of mine I can see why they were scared. As I was alone out there, I tried a few arm movements to try to make my shadow  look more threatening. Sadly it is impossible to make a scary shadow and take pictures of it on a mobile phone.