Is winter ebbing, with spring quietly edging? At the moment. I sense we are entering the scrag end of winter. Daylight hours have increased but temperatures are still challenging. Signs of spring are everywhere, yet the mud of winter pulls at my feet and marks my clothes. Me and mud have never been friends. Even the magical mystery mud of music festivals fails to charm me, the feint aroma of Medieval toilet systems does not enhance my experience. My childhood mud was mostly livestock mud from dairy farms or piggeries. At school we ran through the flat arable fields of the Essex countryside. Probably the purest mud of my experience but I didn’t love it.

And then just like that I remembered that one of my favourite views is actually a mudflat.

From which I must conclude that mud  charms me from a distance. I just don’t enjoy being in it. My apologies to mud for being such a grumpy guts.