Hunting for the Holloway (1)

White Feather Walk – 30th July 2008

Robert Macfarlane mentions briefly in his book The Wild Places of a ‘holloway near Bury St Edmunds’ that would be part of an old pilgrim path.

A holloway is a sunken path or road that centuries of use has eroded until it has become deeper than the level of the surrounding land. Some are Iron Age; some were the boundary ditches of Saxon farms and settlements. None are less than 300 years old.

I want to find the one that Macfarlane mentions. I want to see if I can walk it or enter it.

It isn’t marked on any current OS map so I visit the Council’s archaeological offices behind St Mary’s churchyard and am told that the probable location would be in Grindle, a ward to the south of Bury which takes its name from the open cast mining that used to take place there. Mining of what? I am told the holloway wouldn’t necessarily have been a pilgrim route as there were no such recognised routes to Bury, pilgrims would have followed market roads etc. like any other traveller

The other possible location is at Stanton, 5 miles or so north east of the town.

Nothing appears on the web either. In fact there are no references to holloways in Suffolk at all as far as I can see.

Perhaps I should contact Mr Macfarlane and see where his information comes from? He seems to be suggesting that this particular holloway is relatively well known, even a feature of the region. But the tourist office has never heard of it.

A mystery then.
Good.

The only other way to try to find it is to walk the land. Hazard guesses in there, follow my instinct, replay pilgrimages from different directions. Much more appealing, much more pertinent, solvent. So taking a good look at the satellite images on Google I find two possible locations to start: Grindle Gardens off Southgate and, further south, Hardwick Heath.

I leave at 3.50pm. It is a hot afternoon. The air barely shifts and the sun fair blazes.

On the small lawn in the quad behind the Norman Tower near St Mary’s churchyard, I find a pristine white doves feather. A remnant of the bird I saw nesting in the niche on the front of the tower in May. I pick it up and run my fingers along its length. It is perfect, unblemished. I keep it. It is hopeful. A dusky-skinned young tourist couple frolic and take photos of each other in front of the tower, posing in mock-medieval ecumenical stances, austere and learned, laughing at their high jinks.

At the top end of Southgate I veer off my planned route, taking a signposted Public Footpath east which would, I assume, lead round the back of Grindle Gardens and may throw up something far more interesting than the maze of new-build properties which has taken over this side of the road and of which Grindle Gardens is part. In any case, I suspect that any sign of the past has long been subsumed by contractors: Grindle only in name. I am in the vicinity which may be enough. This isn’t an exact science, but an unfolding, a peeling back in blissful ignorance.

So, along a dark fenced-off narrow and to the right of me there is an unkempt area of scrubland sandwiched between two arms of the new estate. Blackberry bushes with their sinewy thorns and brambles have taken over the area, twining upward into the lower branches of the surrounding trees. A pair of starlings gorge themselves on the earliest ripe fruits; they burble and wheeze to each other in constant communication. Whining, oscillating through numinous squeaks, clicks and wheezes. A jay glides unwarily across the scrub and almost lands in the tree just above me before it realises I am there and flies upward to come to rest unseen in the upper parts.

At the end of the narrow, I follow a pristine tarmac path round the back of Grindle Gardens. I don’t like it there, coming too close to the A1032 already, so I retrace my steps and take a left down a slight incline and I see there are algae covered pools on the right hand side almost hidden beneath the trees. The algae have riddled the water to such an extent that it looks almost solid, the only give away of liquid beneath are the numerous trails mallards leave in their wake as they all suddenly gravitate toward me. The juveniles are very curious and surprisingly fearless, one or two leaving the safety of the water to check me out while the rest continue to dabble at the algae. They are occasionally bumped by clumsy young moorhens as they in turn dive beneath the surface in attempts to forage.

A young kestrel spots for prey in the roadside verges atop a streetlamp beside the A1032, craning her neck, feathers ruffled by the breeze. Tourmaline eyes penetrating the undergrowth, before something unsettles her and she lifts off and flies skittishly away southward.

Cross the ring road and cut into the low-lying ground beyond, reeds and bulrushes and yet more brambles tower over me and the path is noticeably damp and muddy; below the water table then? I come out through the backs of yet more new-build housing, though this of a slightly older vintage than that at Grindle. I skirt through and find myself at an apex of three roads, one of which has an enormous and beautiful cedar tree at the corner, and the smell of humus-rich earth which I have to follow. The road has no footpath so I am forced to stop every few seconds as it is evidently a short-cut for traffic. In fact, I realise I haven’t yet met another walker out here. I reach a junction with a country lane that has a national speed limit sign tacked onto it which doesn’t bode well for further traverse by foot, particularly as the verge is too steep to access in a hurry in the face of oncoming traffic. I stop awhile determining what to do and rest on what remains of an old footbridge, the watercourse beneath it long since dried and gone, and overlooking a resplendent cornfield shimmering gold in the sun. Idyllic if it weren’t for the monotony of BMW’s and four-by-fours that suddenly seem to have erupted out of nowhere and all of whom are using this route out of Bury. I don’t really want to have to turn back. Besides I should be able, by my reckoning, to see my second destination, the Heath; and yet it remains elusive. I must have taken a wrong turn. I watch goldcrests and coal tits scurry around the upper branches of another cedar on the corner opposite. Cedar everywhere.

Wandering despondently back, negotiating the traffic and sleeping policemen. There is a road – Sharp Road – which leads off this arterial hell and I take it, geographically it is heading in the right direction for the Heath, so who knows. It winds through another estate, this time each house is large, ostentatious and utterly individual, evidently far more expensive than the others I’ve seen so far. At the far end I can see an open expanse of lush grazing field with sheep dotted here and there upon it, heads down and I am hopeful this is the Heath. Only to be let down as I get close and see there is a sign reading ‘Hardwick Manor Private Drive’. I rest on the fence, watching the sheep and trying to ascertain where the hell the heath is then, and when does this ownership of the land (both great and small) finally stop and give way to something approximating the countryside? Surely it hasn’t disappeared beneath building lots, or maybe the heath is owned by Lord or Lady of the manor and is not open to the public? When I turn to leave an overweight woman in her late thirties has come out of her house and is watching me suspiciously. When she sees me retracing my steps she scurries back into her house, head down. I feel like knocking on her door and asking what the hell she was watching me like that for? Did she think I was going to steal a sheep?

I make my way right back to the three road junction. Again that lovely, warm smell of cedar needles and must slowly rotting on the ground. Soft, delicate. But I’m feeling downhearted. I can’t even find the heath, let alone any sign of a possible location for the holloway and I’ve been walking for the better part of two hours. I take the only road left to me, the one of the three that I hadn’t already walked and pass in front of a hospital and take the first Public Footpath sign I see, which leads off alongside the hospital grounds and out onto the Heath! At last! But I’m disappointed. This isn’t the untouched southern breckland I was hoping for, but tended parkland with some wilder spaces – a football pitch, a fishing pond etc. the ubiquitous cedars. Even so, it holds some interest. There are twenty or so pied wagtails in the corner of the football field, chasing bugs and midges where the grass has been left to grow a little longer, they twitch and jump every so often or else sprint short distances to catch prey, and in amongst them there are goldfinch foraging for seed, their round fluting calls a giveaway.

I find a secluded and overgrown meadow set back away from the main drag and watch the sun go down through the long grass, teasels etc; shadows stretching beyond comprehension into the hedgerows and over tree boles. The smell in there is sweet and heady and for a moment I am lost. A spotted flycatcher darts from its perch on a crab apple tree. That’s enough, for now – what more could you want, in any case? I doze at the feet of three sister cedars, watch the sky, the high altitude gulls effortlessly cruising back to the sea for the night, the wood pigeons arcing and dive-bombing, the swifts showing off beautifully. Even so, I feel thwarted, let down by the fingers of development and man’s need to captivate the land, make it ready.

One thing to mention of note is that, from the heath, the cathedral (nee the Abbey in medieval times?) is clearly visible. If I were a pilgrim I’d be pleased at that.

Bury St Edmunds

Sightings

Blackcap – 2 Sedge Warbler – 2
Egyptian Goose – 3 Great Crested Grebe – 7
Pochard – 1 Tufted Duck – 20+
Shelduck – 10+ Long Tailed Tit – 7
Cormorant – 2 Reed Bunting – 1
Reed Warbler – 4 Common Sandpiper – 5
Lapwing – 2 Willow Warbler – 2
Robin – 4 Wren – 2
Heron – 4 Black Headed Gull – 20+
Grasshopper Warbler – 2 Chiffchaff – 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker – 1 Barnacle Goose – 1
Hobby – 2 Green Woodpecker – 1

Lackford Lakes, Suffolk 4/5/08

scree!

Overnight the skies over Bury St Edmunds have become home to the returning Swifts and their wild and playful calls fill the last Bank Holiday afternoon – dive bombing the brewery tap and the little pond at the edge of the brewery complex – it’s so much fun to hear and see them chaffing the edge of sanity with their twists and turns and scree-scree-scree. But then, if you’d just traversed the globe, migrating thousands of miles, wouldn’t you be whooping up and saying ‘hi hello, I’m back, whadda ya think? Pleased to see me? Either way, I’m damn glad to be here, don’t ya know.’ Reckon. For it gives me the springtime jitters n’ judders, the thrill of the burgeoning year right there in the ecstatic outpouring and unchecked aerobatics, and it makes me pleased to be alive – sentimentally or nay . . . go figure!

Bury St Edmunds, 4/5/08

Swallows

Out in the Norfolk edge we spot two swallows flirting with the dense tops of oil-seed rape, hedge-trimming their way across the land – it is late afternoon and there is a sense (despite the earlier hail) that spring is really and truly making it’s presence felt – another then spotted resting on telegraph wires above, preening its wings (those tired, post-migratory wings) – there is an acknowledgment that we are at last governed again by this great season . . .

Clutch

For over a week Missy (a female Mallard) has been waddling up our garden and hanging out close to the house, we fed her tidbits (mostly seed and bread) and she would sleep under the old leather chair or even in the porch, or wander off, head just visible above the lengthening lawn, to crawl under the fence into next door’s garden – her drake often watching her from the distance of the flat brewery roof at the far end with its frost melt puddles pooling in the centre, his occasional ‘quack’ a nod so she knew he wasn’t – and she became part of our daily routine, pretty much arriving at the same time every day – and I began to wonder if she was intending on nesting here and if so might that not be a little precarious for any duckling when hatched, being so far from any reachable expanse of water – but it seems she wasn’t so stupid (and sadly this is where the tale might be taking a downward turn) for she had found two old and faded Christmas trees in the theatre garden (next door, but opposite side) tucked away in a nook where pretty much nobody ever goes until the tech boys in there decided to throw the Christmas trees over the wall into our garden whilst clearing out and found a clutch of eggs beneath the trees – this was yesterday, we haven’t seen Missy since then . . .

Clocking On

In the slim gully marking the holdings of no man, between rivers Linnet and Lark, a line of beady reeds vibrate, oscillate in the trappings, where the first spring day breeze crosses the blades and so they shimmy, shadow hatched, counting time, knitting time with needle-fire, marking it with decisive tick-tocks. Some are shorn, others shaggy topped, bearskin wearing almost; all are skinny, akin to an extended family of lanky brothers and sisters who perform daily and bow to silent watchers. And hereabouts a female Kessie is flirting with the ensuing dusk, her limitless prowess governed by the radial arc of dog-walkers and ramblers footing out for the first long day, post-prandially, the clocks forward an hour offering extra walking and drinking time before lights out. The Kessie, she is hidden and bidden by the thin woodland that borders the oceanic A-road to the east, all huffy sighs and murmurs, a crashing tide of cargo-hauliers and mealy weekenders surfing for bargain PSP's and sofas (and wedding refits). The air is brittle with the new season, delicately running a borderline now in the late afternoon, as the Kessie flies clean and low over a furrowed field (the chunks of turned, exposed flint lined up like primeval dog skulls, ossified and shiny with weather wear) and she dallies round on the ground, picking at suggestions of food in the brown earth before rising again to observe the milling reeds from some sticky overhang. All fires the fire of spring; complimented by bells, vanquished only by night (and even then, really?). In the shadows, the suggested abbots and vagrants of another time are blinking, whispering adulations and wry jokes, their feet muddy and blistered with the winter's gone damage (trench foot before trenches); and their plainsong can be heard up the shared path toward the ivy and the spruces heavy laden with cones, where the tombs and the life markers are gently spilling over each other for space.

Bury St Edmunds

Moon Rise

Call it corporeal, fey even (though to be sure even Morgan herself may have been up there last night, what sorceress wouldn’t want to have been?) – the strident barrelling wind at the summit where the Cotswold escarpment bleeds its rock from the golf course and signalling position replete with transmission towers and the party line etched in the noise of fighter planes – where that lone Buzzard is mobbed in extremis by a gang of crows until it can finally trace it’s way out and away on the line of strong thermals a hundred yards out, head dipped, body tipped ever so slightly into the wind – carcasses of caddy trolleys and Victorian mangles, dark brown with rust, emerge half gorged by grasses, clambering zombie-like from the earthy basins at the foot of the escarpment face, itself orangey-red where exposed, pitted with the entrance holes of summer residents nests and other sources of primal erosion – the bleak woodland at the margins (lovely promise in the word ‘margin’) holds a million secrets fading with the light, the rustling and call of unseen creatures stirring or coming to rest for the night, fleeting motion in the shades; and the whole capped with an etched line, the sinewy forms of the newly naked branches (though further in, where less exposed, there are still trees bearing the effervescent gold and brown autumnal markings, a bloom of colour within) – the damp floor is littered with russet leaves or else scarred with fallen timber, silver grey, elephantine – a lone Fieldfare sits in a Hawthorn bush, his chest puffed out under his scowling stare, picking occasionally at the seedy red pods – finally, breaking the high horizon line above where the silhouettes of the land (and walkers) are strongest, the moon shows itself, smoky at first, a bright smudge –

Cleeve Hill, Gloucestershire 21/11/07

Sightings

Whimbrel – 1 Hobby – 2
Little Egret – 3 Grey Heron – 7
Lapwing – 40+ Mute Swan – 4
Ruff – 3 Green Sandpiper – 2
Wood Sandpiper – 1 Curlew Sandpiper – 1
Water Rail – 1 Whinchat – 1
Kestrel – 1

Rainham Marshes, RSPB Reserve 9/9/07

Sightings

Buzzard - 11 Kestrel - 4
Oystercatcher - 30+ Gannet - 11
Robin - 3 Peregrine Falcon - 4
Sparrowhawk - 4 Fulmar - 2 (adult & chick)
Linnet - 1 Wheatear - 5
Meadow Pipit -3 Rock Pipit - 2
Little Egret - 3 Whimbrel - 3
Redshank - 1

Cornwall 20 -25th August 2007

Thames Tide

Lunch break - the tide turns and the exposed mud and shale banks are rapidly disappearing - blink and you'll miss them - stranded artefacts there: the pipes and shells of another life and time stuck in the algae and muddy bottom.

And then an arrogant cormorant takes to the water with little effort, allowing the tide to lap its legs, belly, plumage for a moment before taking to the water and gently drawn upstream.

A gathering of Mute Swans hide their heads in the muddy shallows filtering out favourites, ambling in the heat. Then suddenly they attempt to take flight all together - eight or so swans running on the river's surface and flapping their wings trying to gain speed and lift and surprisingly sounding like horses cantering on hard earth - it's an amazing moment.

But what attracts me most of all is the frenetic pair of Grey Wagtails that twitch on the mud and at the edges of the tidal pools, constantly fluting and twittering to each other, always registering where the other is, never stopping, like some melodic sonar. Occassionally they unite on a lamp post or a barrier on the nearby riverside office development; only to part a moment later and return to their pitchy communication. It's a beautiful sound, and carries way above any nearby industrial and motor hum.

Battersea 5/6/2007

Eagle

Eagle, Cumbria

all images copyright JGBellorini 2007

Shaheen

From a bus or car you’d not notice the Falcon – a carved stone Victorian decoration on the gate post of what was once a mansion house (probably for the railway manager of nearby Clapham Junction way back when). It sits now almost entirely shrouded in the foliage of the unruly trees around it, its squat, broad shoulders and details of the face etched away by rain and pollution. Even so, there it sits as a reminder of the proud heritage it surveys; the lane beyond retaining the name ‘Falcon Mews’. I notice it passing by at street level, a blackbird watching it gingerly from a nearby branch. Even this stone falcon, this representation of the Arab ‘shaheen’ retains some powerful aspect of a living original. It’s in the eyes still, those acute organs that even here, though grey and unmoving, seem to be able to spot the tiniest detail, to follow the multitude of living things passing on the street before it in their buses and cars and decide for itself which one shall be its prey. As if to prove my flight of fancy, the blackbird scurries off sounding its rapid alarm. The falcon of course remains unmoved. After all, it has all the time in the world.

NB 'shaheen' is an Arabic word for a falcon

London, 17/5/07

Cormorant Island

The River Thames at Battersea – brown and fast moving here, the current carrying lines of mucky rubbish and jetsam upstream: plastic bottles, Coke cans and a variety of driftwood and other matter hinting at the life downstream; from the sandbars of Southend or the pier walkers of Kent – who knows? Amid this tidal drift stands an old wooden wharf, lost now from the shore by decay, green with algae and weathered to a sheen, but still standing mid-stream, where Cormorants and a pair of Canada Geese pass the time, preening and watching the river traffic in the lee of the London Heliport. The birds may even have nested there, its hard to tell from my viewpoint on the shore; one of the Cormorants sits on the far lip of the wooden structure, its beak in the air, slightly arrogant in fact, whilst the others stand sentinel nearby airing their wings, stretching their lithe bodies and wagging their heads. Whilst I return to the daily grind of a computer screen their faces appear to be constantly smiling, a spark in their eyes and the sly upturn at the corner of their beaks, like they’ve been let in on some cosmic joke.

Battersea, London 16/5/07

Sightings

Heron – 5 Lapwing – 1
Great Crested Grebe – 4 Reed Bunting – 2
Redshank – 1 Little Ringed Plover – 1
Teal – 2 Chaffinch – 2
Reed Warbler – 2

Waterhay, Ashford Keynes, Wiltshire 18/4/07

Drover's Edge

Rising early, finding nothing out there at first but the bracken and the cold wind coming in from the west, howling between the granite and pushing my bones sideways into the landscape – catching tantalising calls, from where? – gone before any chance of a sighting – I am up here in the Dark Peaks looking for Ring Ouzel though I suspect it is too early still for them to be here yet – even so each squeak or chant from either side of me is an invitation to freeze, scan the broken heather and the weather-beaten rocks below Stanage Edge for any tell-tale sign of the secretive bird – when the wind changes direction I get some feeling back in my fingers and the silence is extreme, the constant rush in my ears now gone I feel closer to this place, one sense closer of course.

I angle my way crossways from the edge, where the rocks fall dramatically away toward the road below, where hikers are beginning to ruminate on their day’s trek and cheap mountaineers come up for practice (I note, disrupting the very habitats they’ve been asked not to on various signs in the area) - from the south, in the shallow vale behind the edge, gazing back toward the mirage of Sheffield I spot two forms moving low over the heather, weaving fast and their blemished blue-grey plumage is a giveaway – a pair of Peregrine Falcons beating down the wind headlong, head on (no other bird can fight it – grim, harsh - this morning, only these aerodynamic beauties) toward the furthest outcrop of rock that I can see; the lead male scoots himself up in an almost vertical climb, the wind pushing him back at an acute angle, he turns so that it is then tailing him and he plummets fast out of sight, closely followed by the female whose path is less accurate and she simply wings her way over the edge and disappears there. The air grows warmer – I chant into my solitude some awed thanks.

Stanage Edge, Derbyshire 9th March 2007

Drawing Hares

With sinew that might span bridges; the madness in the eyes you get to know well. Nothing stops in them. Ever. The report of a rifle, the sigh of December fog, they hear before it occurs, before even the thought of it. With one leg to stand on, one leg to divide the sun, one leg to fight, one leg to guide the night and hide.

Keswick, Cumbria 13/1/07

Wildlife

Linnet – 4 Robin – 6
Lapwing – 60+ Peregrine Falcon – 2
Goosander – 2 (m & f) Dipper – 1
Treecreeper – 2 Nuthatch – 1
Great Spotted Woodpecker – 2 Buzzard – 6
Sparrowhawk – 1 Red Squirrel - 2

Multiple Locations, Cumbria 12/06

From A Window 2

Skiddaw is alone in shroud, the cloud cover nowhere else to be seen except in that one location.

At last the rains have abated and we have clean, clear skies – vivid, crystalline. All except the heights of Skiddaw which, if one were to believe the old adage, is being fought over by a berber and a devil having a smoking contest with briar pipes each the size of a car whilst all around returns to calm, clarity, and thankful dryness. Thermal air makes the waspish edge of the cloud cover spiral out and up, but other than that it does not move, stuck fast to the peaks.

I am hoping this change will allow some opportunity to make contact with the land again. After all, the recent weather has caged everyone in: sandbags up against doorways, the rushing activity to remove possessions from vulnerable places. I have felt increasingly in flight from this land rather than proving some existence among it. Watching it from arms length, through windows, with the briefest of forays out, head down in the driving wind and rain wondering when the flood will come.

Now the higher altitude winds start to shift the clouds up there, at some speed; and Dodd, the western edge of Skiddaw’s collection of companion hills, is lit by the rising sun, a golden russet swatch of land. The thick, blue-grey nimbus peeled back and away. Warmed by the sun and no longer indestructible.

Keswick, Cumbria 17/12/06

Aira Force 2, Cumbria

 

Aira Force, Cumbria

 

Frontier Is Water - flood diary

Never would I have credited the poetic image of the river here with the demonic until last night’s rage – dark, tumultuous floodwaters pouring through the devastated cut, forcing it’s way through the now marginal gap under the stone bridge at the foot of town, lapping at the nearby walls of buildings – brimming with mud and detritus from the uplands and the fell tops: shattered tree trunks floating pell-mell and crashing into their suffering relatives on the river bank; white-water forming where there was nothing but staid grass and shale before – the local alert goes out at 4.35am and everyone comes out onto the street to check and see for themselves how long they may have before the whole lot breaches the defensive wall (already showing signs of damage) – she has risen approximately a foot an hour since the heavy rains last evening made their way eastwards filling the mountain becks and creating new forces where yesterday there were none – the long white arteries replete – the locals are out, lines of them in the night, putting up sandbags and other flood barriers in the hope that they can salvage their properties if the worst eventually happens – possessions are moved upstairs (for those unfortunate enough to live closest), cars are driven to higher ground, passing ‘hello’s’ are uttered as if to say ‘good luck; we’re all in this together if it be so’ and then the night is left to do what it will – the rain comes again a half hour or so later and folk wake from their already disturbed slumber, listening hard for any tell-tale noises that might suggest the proximity of water without; and each says a prayer (whatever denomination) that the rains might cease –

- - - - -

5.35am - keeping waterproof clothes near, listening to nothing but the wind hollering – spirals of sound fretting and hassling the roof – trees glisten, slimy with the deluge, slick skinned – then the occasional silence and to be grateful for the minutes of respite from the rain – when it comes again it’s noise on the flat roof is like the popping of hundreds of embers; an odd comparison to make, two opposing elements but there it is crackling over and over, the burden of my anticipation outweighing any chance of sleep – the land has turned silver by day, fields awash, sheep and cattle stranded on fragile spurs – and in here it is like existing in an echo chamber, some facet (faucet?) of water torture with our lives placed up on tables or any other available space off the floor – and yet oddly the air is so sweet and cool, maybe some airborne part of the mountains has been washed down with the waters and perfumed the air below?

- - - - - -

Sitting in - waiting for the flood to come – imminent here - across Cumbria there are severe weather warnings – heightened senses, the rain hammering on the roof, waves of it coming at times almost silent then streaming across in the gales, rippling feet above my head – the drains are already backing up and swathes of water are forming across the highways – the river level at present is half what it was three nights ago when the first flood warning woke us at 4.30am but it is still early and the water has yet to make it’s way down from the uplands – the river can rise about a foot an hour – sandbags are out in doorways and porches in some forlorn hope that they might stem additional damage – meanwhile the silvery slicks trickle on in nearby gutters, the cacophony of accompanying noises there: the constant enraged sigh of the river; the metallic echoing of rivulets finding drains and forging themselves in there; the barrage of swaying trees and the background roar of storm sound in the atmosphere – it’s all I can do to keep my mind distracted and fill the anticipatory anxiety -

Keswick, Cumbria 15/12/2006

Residence

The River Greta begins to calm and subside, her pace does not falter, but the raging depth has lowered and revealed the gritty banks again – and with that the resident pair of Goosanders ambling in the shallows or making their way hastily cross-current – but perhaps most enthralling of all a Dipper has taken up feeding from the gray shale on the far side of the river, just below the pencil museum car-park; at first nothing more than a vivid white patch against the mottled backdrop, it is soon easy to recognize by it’s regular bobbing motion and of course submerging into the water, like that of a grebe, to feed –

River Greta, Keswick, Cumbria 22/11/06

Blind

Ascending Falcon Crag – snow tops Skiddaw and the remaining high peaks – there are natural elements abundant in every view: water, rock, foliage, snow – from altitude Derwentwater appears to glimmer with ice at it’s fringes; the marshland at the southern end near Ludore is waterlogged, the shape changed from summer’s dry shallow curve – the air is bitter – and the river feeding the Ludore charges , coming on fast over the rocks at Watendlath, menacing, spilling gobs of foam and rushing white horses all the way – a pair of Buzzards and a Great Spotted Woodpecker, both of which I cannot see properly through my binoculars which have lost the ability to focus at long distances, I can only see double - (ghosts?) - through them which just isn’t any good – I am effectively blind beyond twenty feet – I'll have to revert to stalking again –

Falcon Crag, Cumbria 19/11/06

From A Window

A large crow – dark, silhouette 07.40 – hovering around the tops of a thinning oak – the rain driving east, low cloud shrouding Skiddaw’s crown; it almost disappears, just the low spike of Dodd visibly pale, and when it does finally all go it becomes a different place, as if the fells there never existed (reminds me of Table Mountain, SA) – there is a swatch of weak blue behind the shifting clouds, edgy, non-committal like a poor brother; when the rain comes it’s hard and sudden on the flat roof above, pummelling throughout – there are concerns the river may flood once again; she’s already moving swifter than ever, fulsome at the banks, her waters turning redder with the upland silt –

Keswick, Cumbria 17/11/06

Upland

We walk over the river nightly – the orange gashes of light there from the reflected street lamps above – the fastness now after so much rainfall, she flows higher than we’ve seen in recent months –

Piano’s and cello’s close – the workingman’s club is dark, the last building out -

Now for winter and already the winds are dominant, come crashing in all night long, the trees hoarse coughing and shaking nearby – we are all prepared, there is no other way at this latitude.

Keswick, Cumbria 12/11/06

Unfamiliar Territory

Waking the day – under a subaltern’s sky (for I’m close to Southampton); a vivid, cauterised thing burgeoning storms and passing sunlight - moment to moment –

The word rhapsody comes to mind – yet even so a harsh and blustering one; clouds scudding fast eastward –

Deliberations on Vaughan Williams and ‘detachment procedures’ which are in this case immediate references to the train I’m travelling on and the fact that half of it is removed at Eastleigh sidings. However it could just as easily be a reference to a) writing or b) some form of Buddhist enlightenment –

I aim for Lower Test Marshes, out beyond the docks, close to some godforsaken suburb called Totton: broken glass, smashed Woolworths windows, the scent of glue and dead marrow, England flags and Matalan, tribes of teenage parents –

Off the Commercial Road roaring with it’s silver and chrome population heading for the Sunday superstores; I walk into a wooded area - a blessed portal(?) - and then over to my left the expanse of salt marsh and reed beds appears like a hidden paradise. Blasted by strong easterlies, biting at my cheeks and lips. Tasting dry salt on the air.

Up close a buzzard mobbed by crows and a Sparrowhawk fetching up on the other side of an oak and watching wood pigeon. Yet battle as it might, it cannot beat that head wind and gets thrust back toward pylons and away from any potential prey.

Quiet Teal in a shallow pool.

The quizzical gaze of highland cattle.

Four white dots in a sudden downpour off toward the centre of the marsh where the crossing gets harder. Four Little Egrets strutting lazily in the shallows. Beautiful things each; some exotic symbol here. Anywhere. They wait for me to pass, necks craned up to full extent. Giveaways against the surrounding foliage.

The river’s noise close by. The River Test. Foulness and fair.

It’s been a while.


Lower Test Marshes 1/10/06

Eagle, Cumbria

News Coming?

Autumn is increasingly apparent today, seems an obvious thing to say, but up until now it hasn't really been that way – strange and foreboding here amid the arable plains of Hampshire – the landscape nearby is mundane for the most part, tracts of recently cut stubble –

However, just a glimpse of a hare hunkered down, foraging, is enough to give me that kick of excitement -

And tonight the moon is full pink and then clipped by an eclipse; a Tawny Owl hooting not far away –

Portents; the oncoming long nights –

Winchester 7/9/06

Ground Angels

Officially Autumn – the Swallows and the Martins will be gone soon – as will the Ospreys here on Bassenthwaite Lake – I’ve seen two both last evening and this, and seemingly they have not moved from their respective perches, their found places, in 24 hours up in the conifers on the slopes beneath Ladies Table –

there’s more within this evening’s ramble, something sweet in the air on the stretch of path leading to the public hide at the south end of the lake – may just be the turning of the dense foliage and wet earth – it’s been a day of torrential rain – the chase up at Spring End tumbles and rages all day; full of dark, reddish water come down from the hills, it's noise carrying across the fields –

I am saying farewell and my eyes, of course, are re-opened by the forthcoming knowledge of my leaving – the features of the land take on a regular glow, a new familiarity –

Earlier, out in the rain, trimming back the dense holly hedge at Green Gables where the view over Derwentwater is one of the better ones, and Cat Bells opposite is a regular chameleon – each time I turn back to look, the peak and surrounding hills have changed character – first nothing more than a dark, hollow shade through the rain; then a kind of crown-topped jewel appears in moving shafts of light and where broken cloud briefly illuminates one particular edge; then the whole is gone beneath another laden mist before parting solely at the crest where it turns away westward and reveals a common stretch of lime green upland and scattered rock – incessant change –

and, sheltering beneath a coniferous overhang, a playful, child-like feeling sits with me; a kind of outward bound tickle of adventure and freedom with the wilderness so close and the rain just there at my fingertips yet I’m dry as a bone (almost) thanks to my woody friend here – and in the tree just above of course a Robin tick-ticks along in time, dipping his head with each call –

now, dusk – the serenity of Bassenthwaite: the reed patches blown, Mute Swans at their edge and a gang of Cormorants charging on in a low line flying over the surface before ascending and making a large arc south toward Derwentwater for the night –

two Swallows ululating inches above the water –

and opposite, rising, Dodd becomes a copper marker for the last few moments of sunset – a cloud cap coloured orange with reflected light – great, illuminated shards of cloud blown east in an acute push, and some caught in the same orange but seemingly outsourced from other points so that the sun appears to be in many places at once – these peaks and their respective ‘halos’ are the ground angels momentarily able to leave the earth –

Bassenthwaite Lake, Cumbria 1/9/06

Caerlaverock 2 

24hr Eden

In the farmhouse: silence – outside, the rim of the earth across dark stretches of water – far lights echoed in the tide – complete night beyond – we are in here with the full knowledge of the animals without, they present themselves readily by day but now they are aspects of place waiting to repeat their routines at dawn. Occasional airborne silhouettes make their way to the safer ground down by the estuary cross the last pale variants of sky and give the final hints as to their movement –

up in the adjacent tower a set of giant viewing glasses bring many things near (the orange row of lights on the coast road lining the opposite shore; the slow spinning wind turbines at Workington where the land dissolves; the far stretches of silver mud where the sea-water and land shimmer together) adding to our knowledge of the remote – by day the tower reveals the close flight of Martins over the farmyard, and being exactly at their prime altitude one is filled with a rare sense of proximity as they twitter and urge each other on to greater aerial feats, so they become familiar rather than merely tantalising –

at dusk, Curlews call from the mud-flats and in the local fields – their pairings camouflaged and delicate except where they stand in long grass and reveal their slow, loping walk and almost ludicrous beak – but theirs is the evocative music of dusk, the one and only sound of place tonight – an aching heart sound, bittersweet, definite and long-lasting – who would want to escape the enchantment of Caerlaverock?

We are witness to young Roe Deer; to gently patient Herons; to the nervous power of a Sparrowhawk; and to the solitary Osprey at the water’s edge, motionless for hours on a vantage post before twilight’s signal gives him grace to move and he flies, matching the waterline East –


WWT Caerlaverock, Dumfries & Galloway 27/8/06 – 28/8/06

Caerlaverock 

At Loweswater

Until today, I cannot say I’ve experienced the Lake District as it might have been before the constant thrum of tourism overtook it. Or understood it’s potency.

Immediately stricken by the silence; the lack of humanity here at Loweswater.

The darkening woodland (Holme Wood) above, fair full of cross tracks and ancient oak and yew. The chip-chip of animals hidden in the upper branches, feasting. Apparently coffins were borne this way toward consecrated ground at St. Bee’s nearly twenty miles away.

The mesmerising calm of the lake water and sudden drama of nearby fells – Haystacks for example, like a sugar loaf mount. The lee end.

A report of a dying sheep.

Small boats mid-stream.

A lone Kite – ‘that’s not a kite, that’s a bird’ the writer says, punning into the sunset.

The yew tree that Coleridge and Wordsworth stood and gazed at, describing in their journals - a legend still proving life.

All this is fast, a mere snapshot (pardon the pun).


Loweswater, Cumbria 24/8/06

Sweet Powfoot?

Lapwings and Oystercatchers in the nearby mud, silhouettes of Cormorants basking and the countless Common and Herring and Black-Headed gulls skimming the dividing line between earth and water – the landscape holds similarities with places I’ve been before, recent places that infected me so much: open estuaries used for radio transmission or listening – dark mud flats ripe in rain and become caustic silver plateaus in the acute post-storm light. Behind, only metres in land the hollow thwack of golf balls on the tee and an odd shaped wooden cross, a kind of Celtic bear without a head and only arms outstretched, each in a curve.

The river estuaries are good enough. I am among genesis there.

Powfoot, Dumfries & Galloway – 19/8/06

Quotation

From an article by Wael Hmaidan in The Guardian 16/8/06:

‘Four weeks ago an Israeli air raid in the Jiyeh power plant, south of Beirut, caused a 15,000-tonne oil spill into the Mediterranean Sea. . . . now affecting more than 100km of the Lebanese coast. Syria has reported oil hitting its shores, while huge oil carpets now moving towards Turkey may also hit Cyprus and Greece if winds and currents are unfavourable. The UN Environment Programme has labelled this spill as serious as the infamous 1989 Exxon-Valdez incident. . . . Almost a month after the start of the spill, no clean up operations have been started. . . .the oil settles deeper into the sand, rocks and seabed. . . . this will increase the damage to the environment exponentially. The clean-up operations have not begun because of the ongoing siege and daily bombings by Israel. But the situation cannot wait any longer. The oil is highly toxic and will kill all marine life in the vicinity. Several spawning and nursery areas of coastal fish have been decimated. . . . At this time of year, turtle eggs start to hatch, and all baby turtles will need to reach deep waters as fast as possible. . .if they are hampered by oil they will surely die.’

Halcyon Deliverance

Watching Swallows perform in the meadow at Ullock. Perhaps the largest I have seen; evidently feasting well close to the river here. And they come close, very close. Approaching fast and low to the ground; weaving erratic and sudden flight paths mere centimetres above the grass, then accelerating and climbing rapidly before us, squealing and chattering as they go. These birds at least give some concession back to the fact that summer has not quite left yet. The skip of youthful days in the belly.

In the walled garden, closer to the farm, two fledgling Spotted Flycatchers dither aimlessly on the garden table; the adults are not far away, overlooking the inaugural flight of these two diminutive creatures and occasionally darting out to catch bugs and flies. Giving themselves away.

Days don’t come much better than this. Seemingly endless.

Cumbria 13/8/06

Visitation 4 - Mr Fearless

I am up at Green Gables overlooking Cat Bells and the north end of the lake – I’ve been up here for days on end, clearing a large garden for a friend: pollarding yew trees and removing undergrowth and all through the recent heat wave and into this one’s driving rain and oppressive cloud cover. The rowan berries are coming through, a sure sign summer is already on its way out.

I’m not alone however, despite the back-breaking work. A juvenile Robin has taken to watching my every move and feasting on the grubs and lice I uncover as I work my way through. Over the past seven days he has become accustomed to my presence and is now to be found no more than a few feet from me, impatiently waiting the opportunity when I cease tilling or cutting for a moment so he can flit down and feed; which he will do only inches away if I keep still. The intensity of his gaze gets to me, the intimacy of his presence and the comfort with which we co-habit the same space is magical. And incredibly peaceful.

I’ve christened him ‘Fearless’.

There are remnants of his ‘gape’ left at the very corners of his mouth, and the feathers on his back are still downy and not quite mature, as are some his flight feathers. But what is a joy is seeing his red breast develop as I’ve got to know him. At first, ten days ago, there was the merest signature of one coming through: a tiny tuft of rufous orange at the tips amid the mottled browns of the young plumage. But as the days have passed the distinctive feature has rapidly developed. At the moment he looks a little comical as his breast reflects a kind of tartan effect, the red getting stronger and more present but in clear patches. And in this he is still quiet, still timid in the wider world beyond his small but ever-increasing territory.

A robin, I think then, has to acquire his breast before he can truly say what he is to the world.

I wonder if I have even come close to getting mine yet?

Cumbria 4/8/06

Necessary Beauty

The sand martin colony at Portinscale has almost gone now; the late breeding pairs are still returning regularly with food to a couple of nests, but the intense activity we saw weeks ago is all but finished. I’ve been afraid of this discovery. Already it heralds the passing of summer; by August many of the adults and juveniles will gather in the south east ready to make the long haul back to Africa.

And where have I been in all that time? What happened to my promise to come and visit these delightful creatures regularly? The opportunity and hope of early summer that I felt coursing through me as I watched this colony back then has dissipated; equally flown, if that is not too crass an analogy. I abandoned this for a number of reasons, much to my own detriment. Firstly, the recent influx of summer visitors, hordes of tourists suffocating the town and surrounding countryside, treating the land like a giant theme park has simply put me off my usual walks into the land; secondly, the recent debilitations of a period of relative poverty has meant taking on a menial job which, though at times has been a pleasure, has limited my time and energy; lastly, I don’t think I’ve recovered my joy for this landscape here since returning from Suffolk, which I still view as rich and enthralling as any I’ve ever experienced.

So visiting the colony again tonight was meant to be a rejuvenating activity; a chance for stillness, escape, reconnecting with something tangible in the land that I could read well and identify with as being part of this place, this time - and I believed would provide an opportunity to be inspired again perhaps, or at least simply to just take time to sit and watch –

I crouch on the bank opposite as before, the low hanging branches of the trees now in full summer leaf form a partial hide - a sunbeam breaks through the low raincloud and illuminates the nest site and the glad sound of the freshly swollen River Greta is just a few feet before me – I count maybe eight martins in all, perhaps ten – it is still early evening so it is possible that the majority are elsewhere, feeding on the clouds of flies and bugs that gather low over the river, but certainly most of the young have flown the nest. Yet this evening all of this feels strangely temporary, unimportant, with far less impact on my spirit than ever before – they lack the sustenance I am used to and this realisation is shocking, frightening – I am too tired, too undermined for this perfect picture to get through to me - I cannot say I am as happy as I once was – there is a great deal of difficulty in the days and I so abhor this kind of self-pity but find I cannot fight it, the resources have gone, which was one reason for getting out here, to recharge myself – I crave an empty mind, a desire to start all over again – you see it’s a masochist’s dream this writing lark, this ‘creating game’ – I am in pain when I don’t do any, I am in pain when I do – A process of releasing some juice from the bottle trying so eagerly to drain it, to get to the bottom, pouring it out or drinking it yet there always being the same amount left; and at the bottom there’s the terrifying voice reiterating over and over that I’m just not good enough - and so each day, as far back as I can remember, I’ve been attempting to fighting it off, trying to shut it up, to prove it wrong – yet still the fear that it may be right lingers on.

I realise that instead of looking outward on this visit I’ve done nothing but look inward – shying away from the necessary beauty.

So I move. It’s all I can do to try to slough off this mood, gain some more ‘hunkering down’ as John Clare would put it, get right in there with nature until you disappear. I scramble over the bank a little way downriver and sit on a low outcrop of rock that juts into the water so that it seems to me I am marooned mid-river. To my right the water comes charging even though the level is low; to my left it runs away and the quick shifting current over submerged rocks becomes clear – it is exhilarating, child-like, to be there so close, that plane of existence within reach; something tangible perhaps to break my mood?

And then all this despondency, all this overwhelming bleakness is swept away by the arrival of a Kingfisher. A tell-tale brief flash of white and the bird rests opposite at the base of a scraggy bush overlooking the martin colony. I am lucky, it appears to have no knowledge of my presence so remains close, intimate - I am overcome – my nervous system re-lights, I feel the blood start to pump again, all that leaden weight evaporates instantly; the full knowledge that often nature knows what I need far more than I know myself becomes apparent. I sit very still mouthing silent exclamations, idiot prayers; with the bird as much as I can be, my binoculars fixed on it, my eyes absorbing everything it does, every tiny millimetre of it as it watches the water, curves it’s head round to preen a flight feather or two with the long bill. It sits there for a good minute or two before lifting its head catching sight of something interesting and plunging into the shallows before darting off upstream.

I sit breathless, alert to anything that might herald its return. The martins continue to wheel and dive and now even they appear to glow. I have been offered another chance to believe in what I’ve always known that any time spent close to nature is of far more benefit to me than the struggles away from it, even in the pursuit of one’s goals.

The rain comes in; a fine mist of water and with one tip seeming to erupt from Skiddaw a huge rainbow forms. It is one of those moments when the consummate beauty of things takes hold; but also when its fragility becomes equally apparent.

Cumbria 29/7/06

On Being A Killjoy

I don't feel awkward about it. It's what I've known for a long time. Perhaps it is to do with having been a vegetarian for 23 years; having been a birder for even longer; having been in awe of the Hertfordshire landscape where I grew up and learning through observation at an early age of the important and fragile balance that man and nature live in and appreciating how the latter gave far more than it received. I don't know. But I do know that I am a killjoy. And I'm proud of it.

What this means is that when I see a family on holiday - Mum, Dad, three teenage kids - in the high heat of a summer's afternoon taking their dinghy out onto a part of Bassenthwaite Lake which has been designated a 'no boating area' for conservation reasons I'll get worked up about it and I might even have a go. They won't understand. The father will get shirty and tell me to sling my proverbial; but I'll be adamant. It will cause a scene because they will maintain it's for the kids and that they are all doing no harm.

Well perhaps not. Perhaps.

But what if they are disturbing a nest site close by, or a particular breed of freshwater fish that warms itself in that spot at this time of year or, most likely of all, their feet as they paddle back or splash each other damage algae growing beneath the surface which hasn't had a chance to re-establish itself after years of just this sort of activity and is being brushed away from its rocky bed?

You see I'm a killjoy because someone has to be. Because there's no room left for partying at the planet's expense. We've destroyed the buffer, the comfort zone of 'allowable' damage. Yet we carry on as if any destruction to the ecology of a place is someone else's responsibility; and if questioned about it claim innocence through some non-existent moral high ground.

Being a killjoy means taking responsibility for other people's actions as well - like picking up their litter after they've had their picnic and left the rocky shore looking like their living room presumably. What I mean is would they live like that at home?

So I get angry and I mouth off. But, you see, it is important. We have no room left to blame others. We are all responsible now.

Three species of moth, including the dusk thorn and the hedge rustic, once common in the UK, have been discovered as now being close to extinction. Their numbers reduced by more than 90% in the last 35 years. Reasons for their decline include the oft cited and most obvious destruction of habitat, climate change and light pollution from street lights and from houses in the ever-encroaching settlements of the population. These moths have decreased their breeding because it never actually becomes night as they know it anymore, it's never dark enough. So the right conditions for some good moth loving never occur - result: no baby moths. No moth population. No moth dinner for, let's say, nightjars or bats. No nightjars or bats.

And that is kind of my point for having a go. Something, some creature, some habitat, is now constantly being affected by all that we do - and being on holiday does not mean responsibility ends. Tourism, as we are discovering, is responsible for a major contribution to greenhouse gasses, for Everest turning into the highest altitude refuse dump in the world (some claim to fame!). Not for nothing does it also have the moniker 'the tourist industry'. Time I think for a different revolution.

Cumbria 16/7/06

Wildlife

Red Squirrel - 1 (Whinfell)
Oystercatcher - 4 Heron - 5
Kestrel - 2 Buzzard - 1
Cormorant - 4 Red Kite -1 (Didcot)

Cumbria - Hampshire 9/7/06

Thoughts on Dissolution

Why do I go quiet on walks and often find I am unable or unwilling to enter into conversation? Why am I drawn constantly to moving out into the land, often distracted and unable to join others? I witnessed this in myself when I was in Suffolk, then in Winchester, and now of course here in Cumbria.

I think I can begin to answer this. I think it's time I tried, for myself and those closest to me at least.

Virginia Woolf and Henry David Thoreau were giants of solitude. They both found in it a way to move, even briefly, beyond themselves; toward what Buddhism calls 'unbeing'. Woolf could find it in even a simple stroll along a street provided she was alone; it gave her the opportunity to be removed for a while from her own psychological onrush, though in the end it was still the countryside that drew her to her final act of sacrifice. Thoreau sought for his 'unbeing' by living in the wilderness: watching, learning, noting, finding patterns and becoming part of the unfettered landscape of Massachusetts; for him it was as much a political necessity as a spiritual one. But they were both seeking anonymity from others and, more importantly, themselves; dissolution - temporary loss of self.

I believe this is what I've been experiencing recently; and that's not to set myself up alongside those two literary greats, by any means. I like to think of this drive, this need for dissolution in myself as both a form of meditation and an anti-social way of being (if our society's current trends are anything to go by I'm happy to be called the latter, it's a revolutionary stance as far as I'm concerned). It is an important and arresting place to be; frightening as well, from time to time.

It is not something that many people might ideally look for - loss of the self, dissolving one's sense of 'me'. Perhaps the closest anyone comes to that feeling today is whilst travelling abroad, in a foreign country - or the most remote parts of Britain. But even then it is difficult to achieve anything as thorough in our cluttered century as the two exponents from another age I cite above. After all travelling is pre-packed and often merely home from home these days; and how many really remote parts of Britain are left? In any case, who but the daring few are prepared to take the time and trouble to enter into them and receive their quiet riches?

But there are glimpses of hope and they are, I believe, necessary to my survival - if not anyone else's. What is excellent about this preoccupation with loss is that I have to be active in achieving it; willing to listen much closer to the primal self than we are used to doing, hiding out as we do amid the constant techno-chatter of our modern age and all the by-products it creates on our busy nervous systems. And all too often we are silently acknowledging our fear of being alone and running away from it when it is in fact the one place that we should go to ease fear and find strength. Two words: time and patience. We have forgotten their meaning. The first we perpetually act like we want to conquer and subsume, to bend to our will. The second we (in the western world at least) know very little of and appear to have on the whole forgotten as we replace it with products and inventions that claim to make life easier but in turn destroy our patience (and alongside it, our imaginations). As a child I was often taught the benefits of patience: 'Patience is a virtue' the old adage said, yet we bring children up in a world that has less and less of the stuff and which we are no longer practiced in enough to pass on. These two states (time and patience) which we often deny in our sagacity are mutually beneficial to both each other and to us; symbiotic. We ignore them at our loss. We lose them through ignorance.

None of this is less than obvious. But the warnings are not heeded. We are not immortal, yet we act so, consuming time like fast food, without thought to its precious possibilities; heading for a permanent physical dissolution in our belief we are greater than nature, a more potent and unworthy loss than any metaphysical one I propose is of benefit. You see, if I do not take time to know myself as an individual, in relationship to my environment and the natural world, to understand my spirit as removed from another then I remain ignorant and I pass that ignorance on and vice versa. This is a destructive loop and it is now how we as a society choose to live. Worst of all it is promoted through passivity - via entertainment which exploits our very desire not to face our fears and our responsibilities, not to listen to the solo internal voice, to check in with ourselves. Indeed it often promotes living our lives through other people's lives - witness Big Brother and the countless reality TV shows. They are excuses for people not to take responsibility for their own well-being and thereby the well-being of their environment and their world.

If I believe I know it 'all' already, that I can just sit back and relax, what is the point of my existence? I might as well kill myself and have done with it. At least that way I would enter into the huge mystery of death, that awesome 'unbeing' of which I can know nothing about in life (perhaps this is the conclusion Virginia Woolf came to beside that river, with the rocks in her pockets?). Yet if I live as though I know nothing and the world is here to teach me and I am willing to be shown, then I live always on the cusp of potential. Nothing is ever an anti-climax; it might be difficult at times trying to find a way through, but in the end hope will offer me the chance to learn. My entertainment is my own to find. This is the state I have found myself entering into when I decide to walk the 'wilderness' - life becomes rich with awe and wonder, something is always just around the corner and it is often not what I expect. For example, have you ever seen three herons grouped together basking for fish in the shallows of a lake at dusk? I have never seen more than a solitary heron at any one time, usually trying to hide form the world and secrete itself somewhere, let alone three in mutual territory and companionship.

Solitude allows me to think, to be awake. The rest of the time I find I blunder and am often misdirected by myself and others.

Do not live to please your sponsors. Be revolutionary - seek joy in the simple act of learning or the unexpected. The natural world is never less than passionate or inspiring. It denies routine. It offers a different understanding of time. The contribution a simple walk can make to one's appreciation of this cannot be underestimated - the quietening of the super-ego for a while. We are small in comparison to our potential and our world; only very few seem to be keen to strive to gain that potential or even come close to it. The natural world is our biggest clue to helping ourselves.

Everybody needs to wander somehow, sometime, and to get lost - by oneself. To be scared in either a real or metaphorical wilderness. This is not rocket science, or even a radical new idea. But I think it is surprising how little courage we have to make the simple (literal) steps necessary.


Cumbria 7/7/06

Some 'sources':
Where I Lived, And What I Lived For - Henry David Thoreau (Penguin)
A Field Guide To Getting Lost - Rebecca Solnit (Cannongate)

My Back Pages

Why is it that we often give more value to what we consider to be rare than that which is commonplace? What constitutes 'rare' in any case?

I think today, my birthday, is a good day to think about these questions.

So -

Here I am, one year older, and I'm raking and turning over the old earth in the overgrown corner of a huge garden in Cumbria - fine maples and yews cover the ground with pools of necessary shade, the temperature hitting 82 degrees today - flies and bugs rise in spinning patterns, criss-crossing the air, caught in the sunlight; earthworms and other invertebrates are exposed. It is not an easy thing to have done; I feel like I am become a destroyer even as I provide a larder for others. A robin flies in and rests on the low branch of the nearby hawthorn tree - young, vibrant, wide-eyed - he bobs and dips in correspondence with the easy efforts he is making to catch some of the insects I've disturbed. And he has no fear now he knows there is an easy supply - resting on the handle of my spade or on the tip of the wheelbarrow, coming in, checking my position, aware of any sudden move I make. I watch him closely. He brings a gladness to my day; an unexpected present. I start to make odd whistling noises to him whenever I catch him, sucking on my lips and through my teeth to make them whine gently and I believe he listens, tipping his head side to side with each noise, frozen, staring at me, perhaps trying to work out what this numb-nuts human being is playing at.

Absolute stillness in the high heat at mid-day. An opportunity to sit low to the earth, back resting against a bole of a fir and to witness what may come - either within or without. I have been given that privilege recently.

A commotion before me, almost touching my feet - a shuffling of the drier grass cut a week or so before; something frenetic, charged, a seeker, rapid and very timid. Turns out to be a shrew; a tiny, fleshy thing - no bigger than my thumb and covered in fine, downy fur that glistens in the sunlight - inching forward a step then retreating. A surprise to be so close; as if I've been let in, ignored, joyously invisible. Here, bitten as I am by gnats, scarred by thick, rampant brambles - forearms covered in red wealds, sore and irritated - the shrew peers out of its burrow, it waits fretting, inches from me. I dare not move; I suspect it is already picking up the vibrations of my breathing and with a snappy lifting of its head in my direction it scuttles away beneath surface growth and leaf matter.

Both the robin and the shrew are common creatures; two of the commonest in Britain. Years ago many of our rarest birds and animals were commonplace - Harriers and other birds of prey, persecuted almost out of existence by farmers and farming methods; the corncrake; the red squirrel; and even the sparrow is now fast becoming a rare bird. Was it so commonplace we got bored, took our eyes off it for a while and now look what has happened?

Don't get me wrong - I love, for example, to watch a pair of Osprey in a habitat where they have been reintroduced and are now breeding successfully as much as anyone; or perhaps a Soldier Orchid or even an otter. But I believe there is a fine line between what is rare and what is 'commonplace'. We cannot take our eye off the ball for a minute, not now we are entering the potentially apocalyptic phase of the earth's natural history. To my mind nothing in nature is commonplace, it is all extraordinary. Conservation awareness and the appreciation of biodiversity are constants we take upon ourselves; and where possible it is up to the 'little man' to do the ground work (if you'll pardon the pun) for the more 'common' species and let the big boys (the conservation groups, the lobbyists etc) with the relative resources do what they have to do to ensure the safety of those creatures that are currently recognised as 'rare'.

What I would suggest is rare in this case was the opportunity I was given to be in the presence of two beautiful creatures at such close proximity. It requires a certain leaning toward stillness, observation and patience all of which traits are rarities these days. That and a willingness to be moved and enthralled by what we might see everyday in close proximity to our everyday lives. Only this way can there be the hope that the notion of something becoming rare (or even extinct) is in itself a rarity.

A sad footnote:

In The Guardian today it is reported that a £1000 reward has been offered by the RSPB for information regarding the killing of a female peregrine falcon in the Peak District where police, wildlife groups and landowners have been working to protect a small colony of nesting birds. The female was found and discovered to have been hit twice by shotgun pellets.

Cumbria - 6/7/06

Quotation

'...... there would be flocks of thousands of birds, gathering at dusk, and when they turned in mid-air the whole sky would go dark as though Allah was flipping the shutters closed for a second. And not any of those thousands collided he says, do you think this is special? ...... If nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?'

from the novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor

After Genesis

There are some corners of the landscape which are irredeemably marked with death and perhaps have always been that way.

A ram's corpse in a corner of a field, close by Pow Beck, in the shadow of the dense primeval foliage that twines about the brickwork of the disused railway navigation - a dark, whispering place -

The flesh of the beast is, in majority, long gone - a semblance of fleece, now grim and dirty lies in a ring around the remains, framing it and culminating in the untouched parade of its legs splayed fore and aft, black emblems of what once was. A large bolus of fermented grass about the size of a rugby ball sits just beneath the exposed ribcage, the contents of the creature's stomach when it died; the ribs themselves opened out in extremis on one side. Oddest of all is that the beast seems to have been burned either to death or at some point immediately after - the skull which remains quarter robed in a swatch of fleece, and upturned so the empty sockets still stare, is scorched to char black, reddish at the edges and around the turned horns which are untouched by decay or burning. There is the hint of the ritualistic about all this. Or did it simply have to die for fear of disease? But then, would a farmer burn a ram and leave it here spread across a public footpath almost like a warning? Maybe a tramp used the whole for a fire one night to stay warm? Yet, none of these possibilities seem to make total sense; really there is something beyond this, that the ram is a symbol of place than some example of rural necessity. It marks a change between lands. Stepping beyond the dead beast you enter a marshy region hemmed by dark hawthorn hedges, the stench of stagnant water and mire rising; a place where nothing moves. The birds stop here at the edge; Robins secreting themselves in the low branches turn back into the field behind. There's no discernable path through either and the ground is shifting, unsafe underfoot. It is like the 'blasted heath' where the witches in Macbeth reside.

From somewhere in the direction of Portinscale, distant, tremulous, the voices and applause of a cricket match can be heard. But in this place it is as if they are part of some dream, untouchable and far removed from the mood here.

Travelling on through, shaken but fascinated by such an extreme change of mood, I am drawn to thinking about the wilderness and its uncontrollable potential for violence and the harsh dealings in blood of survival - cannibalism, theft of the unborn or recently born, the berserk and the blood-lust - dark thoughts that hunt around the edges of the subconscious, the primeval markers of ancestry - and eventually, breathless, I need to get out of the place. Discovering a collapsed set of rock slabs over the beck, the crossing is almost miraculous as the change beyond the thick tree border is sudden and the swallows and sweeter air come again; and in another corner, a female Roe Deer watches unmoving, her large, soft eyes and gentle being come as a blessing.

Keswick, Cumbria 24/6/06

Ministry of Offence

It begins, as many days do here in the Lakes, with the RAF making their presence felt - Jaguar and Harrier jets (thieves of the Kestrel's soul?) playing war games over the fells, flying low through the valleys. I can only liken it to how it must be on the eve of a country being invaded - and indeed everything about these machines invades one's consciousness - the dark, threatening, shiny visions of death passing low over the treetops followed by the screaming engine noise that obliterates everything in a constant, debasing echo. What are they doing this for? Surely they've been getting enough 'practice' in the Gulf over the past few years; don't tell me they need more. Or is it an opportunity on the summer solstice to remind us never to forget who really owns this land and the immediate sky above it? All day long they fly over in groups of three, forming up and bombarding the town with noise and throwing the animals and birds into flurries of panic as they race northward; and they choose this day of all days to make their presence felt more than any other day I can recall since living here. No coincidence - this is the deliberate presence of the techno-military beast making sure that we never lose sight of our place in the world and never get the chance to contemplate an alternative - the idiot sidekicks to the numb-nuts US. How will we excuse ourselves in the face of history? Becoming as we are the embarrassing joke of the world - e.g: 'There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know.'

Of course some succumb to the 'wow' factor (a tourist version of shock and awe?), mostly middle-aged men craning their necks and getting their sons to come take a look in predictable genetic adoration of the deadly. But those of us who are here every day get pretty angry at the invasion of our privacy from above - this is bad enough, christ alone knows what its like when they're dropping bombs as well!

- Living with war - as Neil Young puts it -

These machines and all that they symbolise, as you can guess, add to my current despondency and feeling that I am out of place. I haven't felt drawn in to the landscape here yet since I left Suffolk. There is a barrier of sensation and memory linked totally with the land there. I need to remedy this. This is a good day to do it. Only one way I know how. Even though the storms and gales are still strong, pummelling the little town without respite, driving everyone indoors, I need to trek out and get lost in the wilderness for a few hours -

I have a plan -

My intention is to traverse the marsh at the southern end of Bassenthwaite Lake, following the length of the River Derwent, the umbilical link between the two lakes (the other being Derwentwater itself). I don't want to study the map too much, something in me wants to discover trails and paths rather than know in advance, to be a little lost and not know which way to get back. I note a few names, landmarks for reference - How, Pow Beck, Rough Mire - and Redness Point, my intended 'destination' where I believe I'll have a good chance of catching sight of a male Osprey hunting for fish -

After ten minutes, the rain slouches in heavily and the winds come up in the late afternoon - small trees crack apart caught in particularly violent gusts, two on the riverbank at Portinscale, pale gashes of xylem and leaves sucked into the current - the destruction is sudden and recalls the fighter jets and their pall over the day - I am soaked and have a bad feeling and return home twice as despondent to gaze out the window at the ensuing tempest, the most gratifying result of which is that it has temporarily grounded the RAF -

I don't sleep well - anxious, I wake around dawn - it is still raining hard and I lie awake for ages even more determined that I must get out, engage I the process of 'shedding' that can accompany a walk into the wild - a lone Song Thrush runs the range of its calls and song patterns, barely the same phrase twice, savouring every stray note of it -

At around 8.30 a.m. the RAF return to infiltrate your dreams if you're lucky enough to still be sleeping after they've hammered home their presence. It is such an assault on the senses, such a shattering of equilibrium - I can understand why Iraqi's feel so aggrieved at being invaded, at very least, despite the violence and the political and natural resource implications, because there's no chance of rest or quiet with all that airborne ordnance flying around - it is potential sleep deprivation at its worst - the coercive methods of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib writ large -

How lucky I am -

The day settles, grey cloud overhead and the winds are beginning to die down and I set off with all good intention to retrace my steps and head on further toward my initial destination, a good long walk set in my mind and step - but nature has a way of always shifting your plans, and if your lucky its very often into the line of unexpected beauty and spiritual treasure. Beyond the fallen trees at Portinscale (now new landmarks to playing kids), I stop to check on the Sand Martin colony (see entry Visitation 11/5/06) in the riverbank. It is an electric sight - birds are flying everywhere up and down the length of the river, screeing between each other with barely any distance apart and then rising up, or coming in direct to the nest mouths where the tiny white heads of growing chicks peek out, mouths agape and the adults come to rest there to feed them quickly before shooting off again. The full, clear view of them is delicious - wings fold back into a streamline curve, the tiny snub-nosed heads switching left to right and dipping to transfer the bugs and flies they've caught on the wing. There must be at least three to four chicks in each nest making an approximate total of 60-80 young, add the parents in and that makes close on 100 birds in this colony alone. It is a truly heart warming sight and I am enrapt there on the opposite bank watching the mix of extreme flying (a better kind!) and tender feeding. An opportunist Grey Wagtail even gets involved at one point, foraging on the bank beneath the line of nest holes for any stray morsels of bug or gnat, never getting too close, but in harmony and trust with his neighbours, after all if he puts them off he's not getting fed either -

Biophilia - the affinity we humans have toward species other than our own - because it takes us out of ourselves and places us back where we belong, at a deep subconscious level, in the heart of some Eden - some Babylonian garden -

Try telling that to the RAF -

Keswick, Cumbria 21/6/06 - 22/6/06

Shelter

A storm strikes; Derwentwater grim, dark, covered in violent waves. The hills on the opposite side (Silver Hill, Swinside etc.) disappear in low cloud cover; nothing more than vague shades over the lough; and a new place suddenly exists, wiped clean of its previous identity.

Greylag Geese gather behind the narrow protection of a wooden jetty where the old-fashioned pleasure launches are moored, straining at their tethers. Trees are screaming with it all; even the stout, proud conifer over the way is being rocked dramatically. I watch it warily for fear of branch fall or the whole being uprooted dangerously close -

The storm bellows: a deep, growling boom that comes off the hills, forces its way over and around things; pushing, challenging, moaning with the strength of its own power. The responsibility of potential destruction.

The Greylags do something which might seem utterly foolish in all this chaos, collectively heading out toward the most exposed part of the lake; undaunted by the choppy waters, huddled together in a close knit passage right into the face of the storm - 60 or so birds just riding it out - a number of stragglers are swept in the opposite direction and become separated from the main body of the flock. One of them flaps its wings and calls, rising up out of the water in some desperate signal - Why on earth don't they fly to shelter? On cue a pair of Mallard rise up from the nearby shoreline and are immediately swept sidelong without any capacity to challenge the direction, which answers my question - they don't have the strength. Swallows are pummelled wildly, thrashed here and there, thrown off course - even these supreme artists of the air are out of their element tonight - and smaller birds have no chance; I see a sparrow forced into the wall of a granite outhouse at the water's edge, flight taken away, become as nothing in the onslaught -

The rain comes in harder now; horizontal slashes running directly north, striking my face with needle-like accuracy and stinging cheeks cold. I am stranded for a while in a small stone shelter just above the shoreline, waiting for a lull which may never come.

The Greylags gather, 'coagulating' in the centre of the lake where the water is most violent and white-capped, a Herring Gull coming in low above their heads. Surely they can't all be going out there to feed in this; gorging on food churned up by undercurrents? No. They stop at a fault-line on the surface where the lee of nearby Derwent Isle has created a shelter, a softer current, and where its furthest edge meets the most exposed currents and largest waves. There the birds stop moving, resting now for the duration; and the stragglers seeing this from way back, push on, guided now by the successful others, following the exact same course through the water, a latent map of currents passed on by the pioneers. These few make good speed, intent on the group majority 'safe' in the isle's shadow. The effort, courage and seeming foolishness it seems was worth it - they, of course, knew what they were doing all along. The stragglers now succeed in joining the rest, gathered beneath an overhanging tree, close by the isle's muddy bank and there they remain, bobbing calmly on that patch of softer water as the maelstrom intensifies toward dusk.

I, however, don' t have the nerve to step out of the shelter, even though I am getting hungry and twilight is setting in - the storm shows no sign of letting up - an hour may pass, but I'm not going anywhere.

Later, after the storm has subsided, sunset fire over Bassenthwaite; great shifts of cloud lit in all manner of inferno orange and red in preparation for the solstice - and behind that they crack wide open revealing a pearlescent expanse of virginal sky - the cloud cover moves quickly over Skiddaw, rolling back in thick globs until it has gone and the dark matter of the scree is left visible at the fell top -

Derwentwater, Cumbria 20/6/06

A Mind to Tomorrow?

Taking the sudden sense of loss and disorientation that has struck me over the past few days and trying to make of it some benefit; catching this restless air, this feeling of looking for something that is not here, and replacing it with the hope of the meaningful in my immediate, unknown surroundings -

- A man out of time? -

I get a tip-off by phone from an old friend who grew up here. He suggests a walk to St. Catherine's Hill. So at the end of the day I set off without a map, directions logged in the back of my mind.

The town is full of football fans celebrating an England victory in the World Cup - they bay and bray, or grunt inaudible words toward the sun whilst wrapped in flags of St. George; the boys are almost orgasmic over the goals they've witnessed, their eyes alight with more life than ever they have over other aspects of their lives. There is a real flavour of the medieval here in this, obviously heightened by the age and architecture of the town itself, the traces of that period. They get so jubilant and happy these supporters that they pick fights, break heads and noses, and spill blood on the stones outside an old pub. Their screams can still be heard over the rooftops as I reach the town outskirts and cross over a narrow road to reach the footpath beside the old navigation canal. St. Catherine's Hill is tantalisingly close, maybe half a mile away to my left, but without a map I get lost and find myself on the wrong side of the water courses with nowhere to cross -

- The sound of the air beneath a Swift's wings as it pulls up in front of me and heads into the eaves of an out-building -

It is not long before I realise that there are people out here still praying for the spirit of place; apologising for the scarring of the land, the open wound that is Twyford Down nearby. With the M11 cutting through its heart and assaulting the area with noise and pollution. All for the sake of a mythical 11 minutes off your journey time to London. Twyford Down, galvanizer of the road-protest movement, of the DIY fighters and rave-progressives standing up to the Criminal Justice Act and whose strength came to the fore in this place, yet whose efforts were ultimately swept away by the lords of Tory misrule. Confrontation played out to the beat of Spiral Tribe's bass bins and the hammer of riot shields. And Cameron's blues are now trying to claim themselves as the 'green' alternative politicos. He ought to come here and make amends instead of running off to Greenland for sledge racing. Do something radical like shut the road down, replant and replace with what was here before; apologise, come bow down and regret. This is his political history, the legacy of poor land treatment -

- Chalk and flint in abundance along the footpaths of the ancient hill fort - Up with the Sand Martins, on a level with their altitude - aye, the backs of birds, a fortunate sight - dancing and cavorting close to the grass tops and briefly flitting down to touch the chalk, taste it, take it away for nest building, then whistling away in their descent -

Winchester 15/6/06