Today we walk as royalty on our way,
Illuminated by the chestnuts’ light.
Above, a buzzard monitors the crowd
Of rapeseed, waving yellow flags in joy.
A chiffchaff serenades us with a song and
Summer’s first swift performs its daring flypast.
Our daughter’s home for the weekend, so we thought we’d repeat the first leg of the Hertfordshire Chain Walk with her.
(19.04.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Nine mile loop on foot
Through woods, fields and viaducts.
Above model planes
And red kites glide the thermals.
Back just as the Sun goes down.
After lunch we decided to go back and do the second loop of the Hertfordshire Chain Walk, knowing that we would be getting to the car as the sun went down. No time to hang around!
(08.03.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
In wonder, we walk these woodland worlds,
That groan beneath green garlands of moss.
This verdant dressing, vivid and vibrant,
Drapes the boughs and cloaks their branches.
Tacking across our track, a trickling
Stream carves stripes into our path,
Whilst, circling up above, black corvids
Caw at red kites above the castle.
Is this a place where faeries frolic,
Fearless in their velvet kingdom?
Today we walked the third chain of the Hertfordshire Chain Walk (we’re going back to do the second another day). At times the landscape was quite magical.
(01.02.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Mud in my eyes
Mud in my fingernails
Mud in the tongue
Mud in the insoles
Mud in the eyelets
Mud in the treads
Mud in the laces
Mud in the stitching
Mud in the cracks
Mud in the crevices
Mud in the cloth
Mud in the plughole
I wonder how
There’s any left lingering
In yesterday’s
Most muddy fields
Today’s task? Cleaning the muddy boots from yesterday’s mucky walk (see Poem 408).
(19.01.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Martin Martz on Unsplash
The opaque skies we walk beneath are white.
Today the Sun is banished, time obscured.
It’s hard to know what era we stand in,
let alone the time of day or year.
Made boggy under horses’ hooves, the clay
is claggy and grows like tumours on our boots.
With every squelching step we feel it’s suction
and fear we might be stranded in its mouth.
Woodpecker heavy metal is joined by sparrow
chatter and the squawk of startled pheasants.
A robin burbles from within the wood,
and Great Tits tweet their welcome as we pass.
Occasionally another world butts in:
manicured golf club lawns, expensive carparks;
the droning rumble of distant motorway traffic;
and show-off houses striving to be on top.
Finally the circle’s closed as we reach the start.
The happy feeling of release as boots are peeled
from tired feet and exchanged for comfortable cousins.
We take our seats both satisfied and weary.
We decided this year we’d set ourselves the target of doing the Hertfordshire Chain Walk; a series of circular walks that turn a chain from south to North Hertfordshire. Today was the first, an 8 mile loop around Whitewebs Park, Crews Hill, and the surrounding countryside. A good if mucky and chilly start.
(18.01.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Ode for the Day 