A dipper

You know what they say about pride coming before a fall. My silvery hair, so recently admired, is now coming out by the handful once more. I tell myself I lost it once before & it grew all the more luxuriantly afterwards. I wonder if next time it will grow straight. Naturally it came wavy. After the first loss, i.e. what I’m losing now, it grew curly. So is it to be straight next time? Meanwhile I can see the tea cosy, my wig, will be coming out a second time.

 

On the radio this morning, I half listened to Samuel West talking about the dipper on “Tweet of the Day” on Radio 4. I was taken off up the Lakeland fells above Ullswater to Aira Force & higher up to High Force – those were the days when I could still walk. On this particular afternoon, a little dipper was busy in the stream. We stopped to watch. His head kept bobbing up and down, He looked dapper with his reddish brown head gently moving into a darker brown back. His white breast shone out against the dark of the brown. That day, & being able to walk, seems so long ago. Indeed it must have been nearly forty years ago. Even so this little character remains in my memory.