The joy of clouds

Recognise them when they happen, because for some of us they don’t happen all that often.

A fab walk with Joe and Georgie yesterday. An absolutely beautiful day. Spring, yes, spring. Winter be gone. Spring.

As you may have figured out, Georgie lives to chase balls. That’s the whole point of a walk for her. But, you know, sometimes she gets a bit pooped, which is when her second favourite thing is required – adoring pats.

This was her first pat stop.

Sometime later she stopped for a rest in an open field. The ground was dry (which it hasn’t been for many months). I knelt down to give her a good pat, then thought sod it and laid down on the ground beside her. Joe decided to do the same thing.

I found myself on my back looking up at the clouds. For the life of me I cannot remember the last time I did this. Yes, yes, I remember doing it as a kid, but when exactly was the last time? I have no bloody idea. Nevertheless I had the sense to recognise looking up at the clouds in the sky for what it was: a moment of absolute happiness.

However long ago it was, I remembered the game. There was one cloud (not in this picture)  that really did look like a horse’s head, complete with eye, nostril and mouth. Unfortunately, while I was still trying direct Joe’s gaze to the cloud in question, it drifted apart and the horse was gone.

After a bit I found myself saying(not singing), “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.” And Joe joined in: “From up and down and still somehow, it’s clouds illusions I recall. I really don’t know clouds at all.”

As we were lying there, with Georgie stretched out between us, a woman went past on her bicycle and said, “Now that’s the way to do it.” I couldn’t have agreed more.

Some distance further along the trail, in another open field, Georgie decided to have another lie down and so did we. No more horse’s heads, but that didn’t matter. Cloud gazing. What fun!

Back on the move again, as proof that I have an at times tenuous grasp of time and distance, I said to Joe that I supposed our cloud gazing stops meant I wasn’t going to make 10,000 steps. He responded by pointing out the distance would remain the same, it would just take longer. Oh, yeah, right. Duh.

On average our walks are somewhere in the eight thousands, as far as steps go, sometimes as few as the six thousands, but there are smug days when the steps top that 10,000 “goal”.

Back home I check my phone.

Woo, hoo. Send Joe a text with this photo. There is an advantage to having shorter legs. Joe replies that his phone only clocked 9,300 steps.

Then I dig through the CDs and pull out Joni Mitchell.

I have no idea when I last listened to this song, but I’m pretty sure it was more recently than the last time I laid down on my back in a field to gaze at clouds. I have a feeling that was so long ago, CDs didn’t even exist.

What a fab afternoon.