A perfect winter's day

A brittle, sparkling morning inspired me to venture out again on the Aldham and Hadleigh loop. For once, the sun persisted all day, eventually beating the overnight freeze and by midday turning the white, frosted, newly ploughed fields into gleaming brown waves. Even then, hollows and north-facing, sunless places remained stony hard and frozen.

I followed the track from Boxford towards Bower House Tye, then up to Wickerstreet Green. It was good to be able to walk off the roads again (the last few weeks have been so wet that lakes of mud have gathered on most of the local footpaths). Skylarks rocketed up from the fields which still have some grassy cover, challenging me loudly from the perfect blue sky.

I followed the path through Kersey Vale, expecting to have to trudge through sticky goo up towards the Hadleigh bypass. Surprisingly, the path was dry and well-trodden; probably the steep slope had made the weeks of rain run off at last into the River Brett, which today was gushing through its banks.

Past the mill house (well, actually through their front garden, as that's where the footpath goes - sorry, again, patient people who live there!), I followed the path through the field parallel to the A1071 to the junction at a footbridge on the right. I considered taking the right-hand track and trying once more to find the right of way through to Aldham Church, but decided that probably nothing would have changed from my previous experiences of trying that route (someone seems to have blocked it permanently), so I continued to the road past the old quarry, up the hill to the Dutch House and left along the Aldham Road to Church Road.

The church seemed to be bursting out of the hill this morning, so bold and white with its flint walls against the now almost summer-bright sky. I sat for a while in the company of the churchyard, looking for residents I hadn't noticed before. I found one: a certain William Cooper, who died in the days of Napoleon, and who apparently wrote a lengthy and cheerful poem on his deathbed, the whole of which is lovingly transcribed on to his headstone.

On across the fields to Hadleigh and down Angel Street, the sun still avoiding the slight hints at clouds which briefly appeared. Walking over Toppesfield Bridge, I stopped to watch a procession of a dozen stern-looking geese, marching purposefully, one behind the other in single file. When they spotted me, they erupted into a furious honking, beaks extended menacingly. I hurried on past, up the hill to Holbecks and along the back road towards Polstead Heath. Early purple violets and very early primroses mingled in places at the side of road with clumps of still-flowering snowdrops.

The land flattens out here and the sky opens up. The morning cold had mellowed into a breathless, shimmering afternoon. A gap in the hedge framed a vista of blue, receding into the far distance, paler and paler into grey. It reminded me that in Suffolk, even in the most westerly areas like this, the sea is never too far away. It could be just beyond those furthest trees.

Sunshine, a promise of spring and a reminder that it will soon be time again for the seaside - a perfect February walk.