Country diary: Winter has come and gone in a week | Paul Evans

The Marches, Shropshire: As the ice thins and the paths begin to stick, the ravens and owls are getting busy with their breeding seasonUp on Cyrn y Bwch (Horns of the Buck), known as Old Racecourse Common, a plateau on the edge of the Oswestry Uplands, winter comes and goes in a week. There are still white punctuation marks fallen from the rich quiet of a snow spell that feels dreamlike now as the puddle ice thins to kitchen film and paths turn claggy.The thaw is a kind of recall as the past ret