Urban Coutryman

Unrelenting northerly winds send temperatures plummeting, from highland to lowland, across mountains and meadows. And the grove of deciduous trees which offer tentative shelter for the farmstead stand stout, naked and skeletal. Their bones laid bare for all to see.

A formidable beech hedge, sculptured and stoically clad in its now rusty chainmail coat, guards the southern boundary. An impenetrable riot of colour, yielding a faint smell of earthly goodness, which gives cause for optimism even on the most dreich of days.

Tups take shelter on the leeside, sharing common sense and common ground. They taste the changing of the seasons like the migrating salmon taste the river of their birth, the water of Urr. Each irrevocably hefted to this corner of Galloway with a common urge to complete the circle of life.

At midnight a darkest depth moon illuminates the valley within which familiar landmarks stand in soft silhouette, silent yet reassuring. Frost rides hard through the night. Touching, gripping, crystalising, penetrating.

And always, in this month of the year, the wild geese flight as regular as clockwork. At dawn and dusk, coming and going, toing and froing to some favoured field, river or roost. Arriving en-masse with their melodious wild chorus. A symphony for all to hear, if you simply take the time to listen.