Susan Jones – Writer

What’s your favourite Easter song and why?

There is a green hill far away

Without a city wall,

Where Jesus Christ was crucified

He died to save us all.

We may not know we cannot tell,

What pains he had to bear,

Though we know he died for us,

He hung and suffered there.

That’s enough as it’s quite sad, and if the words are not exact, they’re the ones I used to sing in Sunday school and church a long time ago.  I think on Good Friday, we have to think for a minute of a green hill far away, all those years ago, when Jesus was crucified on the cross, when all he wanted to do was wander around in his sandals telling stories.  It seems a bit harsh, and the good thing is that he appeared again on Sunday.  I like to think of the real Easter message, and at this time of the year there are signs of resurrection everywhere in nature.

My other song for Easter is one that reminds me of when me and Alan were younger.  We met when I was 18 and he was 24.  I fancied myself as a bit of a Suzi Quatro, and he was a bit of a David Essex.  Whenever the song by Elvis came on, he would take my hand,

Can’t you see, I love you, please don’t break my heart in two,

I’m not made of wood and I don’t have a wooden heart

And if you said goodbye, then you know that I would die

As I’m not made of wood and I don’t have a wooden heart.

There’s no strings upon this love of mine,

It was always you from the start.

Treat me nice treat me good,

Treat me like you really should

I’m not made of wood

And I don’t have a wooden heart.

He would look deep into my hazel eyes with his big blue eyes, and my heart would melt.

That same record came on the radio today, he had popped home to oversee the delivery of a cooker, but a tear came to my eye at those words, that are sung better by the man I love now, as then.

Seeing as it’s Easter, come with me on a woodland walk and look at the beauty of Spring appearing.

The farmer has just put that fence there, he’s planted some crops in the field.  I think it’s to stop dogs running over it, there’s plenty of squirrels who pop out of the woods though, he won’t stop them nibbling the corn when it grows.  I met a lady with three dogs.  One of them, a spaniel called Henry ran to me for a fuss.  She was shocked. “Goodness me, have you got a dog?” She asked. “No, but I used to have one.” I replied.  She told me that Henry never goes to anyone, she had just had visitors for the afternoon and he’d been hiding and wouldn’t go to them.  He was cute.

After the field comes more fields that sometimes have horses dotted around.  Now, I love horses, but I have a silent fear of them, which I think they pick up on as they seem to follow me and look rather interested, which makes me walk as fast as you can imagine without appearing too scared.  Once I had a dog called Duke who insisted on chasing horses.  One day, he got kicked by a big white horse, and came limping and crying to me, where I told him off.  The big white horse came right up to us as if to check he was alright, then nodded his head and scrapped his foot; as if to say, YOU TRY THAT AGAIN. He never did of course.  That picture on the left of a black beauty of a horse is the closest in the field that I get to a horse.  I was right near the stile ready to jump over if need be as well.

Deep in the woods is a magical place.  Honeysuckle is beginning to wind itself around the silver birch trees, and all kinds of birds are whistling and squawking.  It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s some monkeys up there with the noises.  I disturbed an extremely large bird which I think was an owl, or a buzzard, or sparrow hawk.  I’ll have to get my bird book out.  There are small munk-jack deer in our woods, but they only come down in the winter, keeping much deeper when there are people around.  One early morning, I saw a beautiful golden fox.  He was at the top of the woodlands, and he looked at me, giving one of those sidelong glances, as foxes do (I can see where the phrase sly fox comes from) and meandered along his merry way, as if I was part of the scenery.  At the top of the woods, you can see for miles across Leicestershire, where our daughter lives.  I usually blow her a kiss from there, unless she’s with me of course, which she often is, then we spend time together admiring the view.

You can’t beat daffodils in the wild can you?  When we were younger me and my Sister used to pick them, it seems a naughty thing to do now and I wouldn’t dream of it.  Still, we were only taking them home for our Mum though, so we put them to good use.  Hope you enjoyed this walk, reminding us how beautiful the Warwickshire countryside is in Springtime.  What I enjoy most about living in Warwickshire is the freedom of the woodlands, canal walks, forests, not only that, we’re in the middle of the Midlands, so anywhere you want to go isn’t too far away.  So enjoy your freedom and walks this Easter.