County diary: lines made by walking

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire Thawing snow highlights the paths people – and animals – take through the landscape A thin white track up the field marked where footsteps of schoolchildren, dog walkers and ramblers had compacted the snow and turned it to ice. When the thaw came only the narrow ice track remained: white, opalescent, slippery and dangerous to walk on. People took to the sides of the path, already claggy from before the snow, making the white line through dark earth even more