Today is Valentine’s Day.
February edges steadily toward spring, yet this morning I wake to a landscape locked beneath a silver frost.
The morning starts with a simple errand—a visit to the barber. On a Saturday it is usually busy, so I decide to arrive early, before the doors open, hoping to be first in the chair. My barber is kindly disposed toward dogs, and Carys enjoys the admiration she receives there, so she will come with me.
Rather than take the car, I choose to walk the three miles into town. Afterwards, we will drift back through our usual, quieter routes. A hybrid walk—half pavement, half pasture.
At 7:30am the streets are gentler than expected. Perhaps we are ahead of the commuters. Shopfronts remain shuttered, curtains still drawn. The world feels suspended between sleep and activity.
We rarely walk through town, and Carys moves with cautious attention. Each passing bus commands her focus. Each heavy truck earns a cautious pause. Slowly, as the pavement proves itself reliable and no danger comes of the noise, her stride lengthens. Her usual curiosity replaces caution.
Here, the language of the morning is different. The whisper of wind in trees is exchanged for the steady rush of traffic. Birdsong yields to the low rumble of engines and the hiss of tyres on damp tarmac.
The cold tightens its grip. I raise my hood and zip my jacket high over my chin. A small act of self-kindness against the air’s sharp insistence.
We pass beneath a metal railway bridge where pigeons roost in the heavy beams. The netting meant to exclude them has failed, and they gather undisturbed, puffed and preening, engaged in early courtship rituals. The city belongs to them as much as to us.
Soon we cross a bridge over the River Tame. The water runs fast and brown below, swollen by recent rains, pressing onward with quiet urgency.
Arriving at the barber’s shop, I am surprised to find several people already waiting inside. So much for arriving early. The haircut will wait a few more days. No matter. We turn away without disappointment. The walk, after all, was the greater purpose.
We thread back through the backstreets and along a narrow cobbled alleyway that opens suddenly onto the canal. Narrowboats lie moored along the edge, their paintwork bright against the subdued morning. I imagine their occupants still tucked beneath blankets, kettles yet to boil. We pass softly, unwilling to disturb the hush.
At Portland Basin we cross the bridge and step back into woodland. The change is immediate. The air feels wider. The ground softer. Carys surges forward, looping exuberant circles around the pine trees. We were here only recently; she remembers every bend.
From there we follow the canal toward Manchester for several miles. Old brick mills stand shoulder to shoulder with reedbeds. Warehouses cast reflections across water where mallards trace patient lines. In the quiet margins between towpath and traffic, wildlife is returning. Robins claim low branches. Mallards patrol the shallows. Even in these narrow corridors between urban sprawl, life gathers where it can. Spring rehearses in small, subtle movements.
Eventually we leave the canal, cut briefly through busy streets, and slip once more between hedgerows into the nature reserve. The transition is gentle but profound. Sound softens. Space opens. Carys lifts her head and inhales deeply, as though recognising her true terrain.
Alongside the pond, I notice damage to the young trees. Bark has been stripped from almost every trunk, chewed and scratched to shoulder height. Grey squirrels are known culprits, yet I suspect deer have also fed here, turning to cambium when winter offers little else. It is difficult to see such injury, but there is resilience in these trees. Many will survive, healing slowly, drawing strength upward from hidden roots. Hunger drives the deer; survival binds them all.
When we turn for home, we follow familiar trails across open meadows. The difference between morning streets and these fields lingers in my thoughts. In town, pigeons and starlings flourish—adaptable, confident, thriving among rooftops and railings. Their world is brick and beam.
Out here, the cast changes. Robins flick between fence posts. Blackbirds stir the leaf litter. Somewhere high above, unseen wings circle the thermals. The wilderness holds a different rhythm—less hurried, more spacious.
Carys, too, reveals her allegiance. On the pavement, she was measured, watchful, uncertain. Here she moves with instinctive assurance. The uneven ground, the shifting scents, the distant rustle in grass—these are her familiar companions. The wild is not wild to her. It is simply home.
By the time we reach the last meadow before our own street, frost has softened at the edges. The hybrid walk—street and canal, bridge and woodland—has drawn a quiet line between two worlds that exist side by side.
Winter still lingers. The barber’s chair remains unclaimed. But love, perhaps, is found in simpler gestures: shared miles, cold hands warmed in pockets, and a dog who knows exactly where she belongs.