I have recently got my first ever pair of ‘proper’ walking boots, in readiness for a four day hike in the lake district in may. I havn’t done any hill walking for a long time and in fear of not being able to ‘keep up’ I have been going out walking almost everyday to try and get used to the boots and train up a bit! I love going out to sketch anyway, and the sunny days have easily lured me out! Friday was beautiful so I decided to walk up to Nash’s farm and do another sketch there. I have made a little ‘studio’ by finding a plank of wood and laying it across a piece of old farm machinery. But when I got there my boots didn’t want to stop and they seemed to take on a life of their own and carried me on up through the fields and further than I had gone before.

I crossed over Coopers Green Lane and found a path past another farm and out into open land with tussocky little mounds and little hawthorn trees. So beautiful and unexpected, and peaceful, and ..a cuckoo!

I  stopped and sketched a little hawthorn tree that had just it’s thorns and tiny white blossoms all over it.

I walked on past a sign board which said ‘Ellenbrook Fields’. I was on part of what was the old aerodrome, in Hatfield. I found myself coming out onto the Hatfield road by Notcutts, where I bumped into a friend. I told her about the field and she took me back there later on that afternoon with my easel and oil paints so I could make an oil sketch as well!