Project 365 day 17: a sunny day!

This morning I woke to low, golden sunlight, a wonderful surprise after weeks of almost unremitting rain and fog, and my mood lifted. I couldn't get out for a walk, but enjoyed twenty minutes in the garden with the camera at lunchtime. I wasted some of it trying to stalk an unco-operative pheasant with a talent for positioning itself behind long grass or stray branches - I'm hopeless at capturing anything that moves. Fortunately the landscape is more obliging. This is roughly the same view as yesterday's blip, but looks very different without the snow. The green shoots in the lower field are winter wheat, and the meadows on the hillside are used to graze horses. Everything is very green after all the rain, and the low winter sun brought out the gold in the browns. The wider view in the extra includes part of the small mixed orchard of young apple, pear and cherry trees which my husband has planted. I love this view: I go to the back door to look at it every morning when I get up, and document its seasonal changes. French filmmaker Agnès Varda said, "Si on ouvrait des gens, on trouverait des paysages." (If we opened up people, we would find landscapes.) We are in our eighth year here, and for the past ten months have not left our home and village; this view is becoming a part of me, just as the beautiful view of the edge of the Cotswolds with which I grew up remains ingrained in me.