The summer days of the first lockdown seem like a breeze now, almost a year later. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and walks were still an entertaining novelty. The simplicity of that time – it’ll all be over by Christmas, at the very latest – stands in complete opposition to the dreary drudgery of lockdown in winter. The walks have persisted, one constant among so many other unchanging facets of everyday life, but it’s clear that they need a little je ne sais quoi to keep them interesting.

“The sun was out, the sky was blue, and walks were still an entertaining novelty”

For me, the retrospectively idyllic nature of last spring and summer was absolutely shaped by the bucolic surroundings in which I found myself. It’s hard to think about social distancing and masks and the other paraphernalia associated with the pandemic when you’re cycling along country lanes for hours with nobody for company but a few cows. Walking was another new hobby, discovering new routes on roads and in the woods. All in all, I was fortunate enough to be able to treat it as a very localised summer holiday.

During the November lockdown and now, in the seemingly interminable third lockdown, it hasn’t been quite so enjoyable. Back in Cambridge for Michaelmas term, it was a shock to the system to see hundreds of people on my daily walks instead of the four or five I’d grown used to. There’s less variety in the city, too; King’s Parade, beautiful as it is, doesn’t change much with the seasons, and tramping through the sludge to get to Grantchester Meadows wasn’t exactly appealing.

When I returned home for Christmas, the selection of walks available to me was also reduced, thanks to the inclement weather. All the off-road paths are completely impassable due to mud and fallen trees, so the last three months have been characterised by following the same triangular route almost every day. Doing the same circuit in the opposite direction was interesting for about three days before it too became a chore.

In order to rescue my principal lockdown coping mechanism from sinking into the same tedium as practically everything else, I’ve had to get creative. Winter is slowly morphing into spring (as much as the snow has been trying to prove otherwise), but the gradual process of daffodils and crocuses poking out of the verge isn’t the most captivating thing to watch. Instead – taking my lead from the excellent CBeebies programme ‘Come Outside’ – I’ve been looking up more.

“As the days and months of a winter in lockdown blur together into a mush worse than the paths through the woods, the sky is a source of constant change”

As the days and months of a winter in lockdown blur together into a mush worse than the paths through the woods, the sky is a source of constant change. Over the course of a week, it can go from snow to rain to sun, and it fluctuates hour to hour and sometimes minute to minute. The birds, too, play their part, with herons providing a link to mornings on the Cam, and red kites swirling on thermals and diving down into the fields.

I’m also lucky enough to live near the Heathrow flightpath, so watching the planes fly past is an easy distraction – so much so that seeing the Frankfurt-Miami flight at lunchtime was almost a daily ritual by May last year. Add to this the frequent chinooks thudding over in the night from the local RAF base, and looking up at the sky is a worthy rival to staring at a screen all day.

Combining the simple pleasures of the weather with birds and planes, then a moment of sky-gazing can almost be enough to distract from the earth-bound problems. But if I haven’t convinced you yet, perhaps the advent of spring might. The days are already stretching out, meaning a sunrise is something to be pursued rather than witnessed automatically. The days are getting longer, the early spring flowers are starting to come up, and birds are singing instead of huddling for warmth.

Next time you go for a walk, try looking up. What you see might just surprise you.