Skirr Cottage Diary.

I am dreaming of the Norfolk marshes: of days laden with scope and bins, wandering the paths through the swaying reeds and flag iris. In the short-cropped grass of the nearby fields are geese and starlings; sometimes a hare lopes between the dykes. Coot, moorhens and swans paddle the drainage ditches. Redshank call and godwits muster in the lagoons; dunlin rise in panic at the sight of a marsh harrier. Reed warblers and sedge warblers sing their home-coming songs; skylarks rise to the blue sky singing over the shoreline - invisible to the eye. The windmill turns and the seasons move on: spring will soon be upon us and the redwings will have flown north to be replaced with swallows and Martins from the south. The winding paths through the reeds and the crunching march on the shoreline of many-coloured flint will be trodden once again.