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

Shadowline

Looking back so soon - to the Suffolk landscape.

Each window at Snape Maltings was a bright beacon maintaining a view onto paradise at the end of corridors, and stopping to gaze out the view would become so much more important than any other immediate concern, a form of escapism - the bright sweep of the reed beds in the immediate foreground, constantly sighing; the arcane dip of the muddy banks revealed at low tide, those great silvery reaches pockmarked, bird-stained, a rich source of life that I can only just comprehend - on the far bank, the squat tower of the church at Iken hugged by brotherly trees; and in the background the open course of farmland and hedgerows with their permanent swatches of gorse. All this capped by 'the big skies' as I came to think of them - true, dramatic, unlimited formations of cloud and changing densities of blue - light's dividend. The absorbing, ancient feeling in each glimpse of it all. Maybe the landscape was repeating and reflecting some latent knowledge of place, forging affinities that I never expected could happen, a pleasure principle way beyond mere visual excitement and stimulation - something far deeper, whispering of history and discoveries of language and species; the soul's kiss and re-awakening. Potency, potential, and hidden familiarity rising effortlessly through the reeds -

And now I'm left with the ensuing regret of leaving it - a vacancy inside similar to pining for a lost love -

Winchester 14/6/06

Birdlife

Redshank - 4+ Snipe - 20+
Cormorant - 1 Kestrel - 1
Oystercatcher - 6 Little Egret - 3
Whitethroat - 1 Linnet - 3
Ringed Plover - 4 Meadow Pipit - 2
Long-tailed Skua - 1

Orford Ness & Aldeburgh 10/6/06

Regeneration, My Good Doctor

Succumbing to a gastric virus, I am laid low for 48 hours - a biological mess. I remember little of the past two days: a struggling journey to the supermarket for supplies of water, trying to keep my innards in as I move; falling asleep laid out on the grass in the garden in the warm afternoon, stomach griping and churning painfully; and long stretches of boredom in between.

Some things came to me in this state. Things I'd witnessed recently but hadn't been able to consider since the illness came on: running along the beach surrounded by 'crab dust' - my name for the detritus of crustacean body parts washed up. That collection of pale peach-coloured claws and severed limbs scattered along the highest tide mark. Presumably the remains of catches discarded out at sea then scavenged further by gulls and spread. It is a maudlin sight. Disturbing too (affecting my Cancerean being?). And the Hobby above the garden on a previous evening, watching a circuit of Swifts and Martins, each one a potential dinner, reeling through clouds of airborne bugs and midges over the cottage. The Hobby is the only bird of prey skilful enough to catch one of these birds due to its ability to make sudden bursts of speed and rapid twists and turns. It didn't make a move on any of them at this stage, just hovered briefly, calling once then scared off by an approaching car below.

Finally, this morning my guts stilled themselves and I am able to keep some food within the bounds of my body. I am a little weakened by fluid loss, light-headed and with muscles like lead, yet I resolve to do the one thing that I know will make me better. Walk.

Everyone advises against it, telling me that I need to rest. But I know different; at least I hope so. Taking a look at the map, I plan a short trek along the coast and then cut inland toward North Warren and the marshes there. It doesn't look too much of a stretch, and if my body fails me in any way I reckon I could get back home inside half an hour.

At first, movement is slow, aged. I am not sure how long I will be able to remain upright. My stomach starts, worryingly, to swim again and my head reels a little. I feel like some medieval monk fasting on a pilgrimage, visions and hallucinations waiting round each turn of the footpath. But I am soon relieved to feel my muscles come back to life as the blood starts to pump, and pretty quickly my body responds positively. I feel warmth return to my cheeks; and my stomach, though still maintaining vulnerability, settles. In the lush meadow wilderness at the back of the new build estate at the north end of town, the world is full of refreshing, rich, verdant smells - elderflower, wild grasses - as the sun gently breaks and warms the dampness there. I catch sight of a Whitethroat singing in topmost branches; he scatters pretty soon after realizing my presence. From there I cut along the road toward the sea. It starts to rain lightly, a brief shower. The beach is full of Sunday walkers and families with kids and dogs charging here and there. Most of them look a little lost or sleepy, seeking inspiration by climbing the Britten monument. A pair of Skylark scrabble in the sparse beach top undergrowth, scurrying and hiding at my approach, the male raising his sharp crest. An area has been cordoned off to help protect the Sea Pea growing on the stony beach from tramping. It goes by the perfect name 'The Haven'. I keep clear, hounding the verge; watching Linnet on the high tops of gorse on the opposite side of the road, before cutting across to where the North Warren nature reserve starts at Lamb Cottage.

Sheltered from the beach and the road by a thick gorse hedge behind me and the small (abandoned?) cottage to my right, I walk into a natural enclave. It is a sudden change; an immediacy of transportation that I had not expected, like stepping into a secret garden. Ahead of me, feeding on the ground, a number of Linnet ignore my presence; the male has the brightest crimson head and breast I've seen, almost swatches of thick red paint. And a collective of juvenile Magpie and Jackdaw sit together on a rusting cattle pen nearby, calling frenetically, some hunkered on fence posts. They have an odd alert-yet-sombre bearing, and beyond, half hidden in a dense thicket, an adult Magpie is calling a sort of croaking alarm. Something is up that has disturbed these birds but I can't work out what. Maybe another young has just been taken by a bird of prey or else is ailing within the thicket? Even the Jackdaws sit unsettled, collecting together at one end of the pen. Another bird joins the adult in the bush, this one younger, and encroaches on the others' space, mewling, opening its mouth as if desperate to be fed. There is an air of the weird here. The three juvenile Magpies wait silent and absolutely stock still, watching what is unfolding before them, their slightly chubby bodies drawn in and heads sunk between undeveloped wings. A Reed Warbler settles on a branch behind my head and watches this avian soap opera unfold, presumably understanding more than me what is occurring. It's a male and my stillness doesn't alert him to my presence, in effect I could reach out and touch him he is that close, with his belly toward me and the sharp little face twitching left and right. But a warbler never sits still for long and when he goes I go, leaving the strange scene behind me.

The footpath is now hemmed by drainage dykes, the bushes and reeds peel back to reveal the surrounding lowland salt meadows. Cattle grazing. Rabbits by the bordering hedgerows. About half a mile away a flood pond has collected and now attracts Shelduck, a stalking Grey Heron, restless Lapwing, and what might be Ringed Plover occasionally flitting up from their nests in the grass. I wonder at the sparse numbers of Lapwing. When I was younger I used to see huge flocks of them gathered in meadows like this, an easy, pleasing sight. Now it is always ones or twos. Can it be their numbers are suffering a similar decline to other once common birds?

A pair of Sedge Warblers comes close - am I invisible today? Their burring, mini-motor calls constant as they flit from the reeds to a set of bushes by the path, catching flies. A beautiful warbler - silvery stripe over the eye and ochre and buff shades on the body. My first sighting. Cheers!

Further inland, a tangy wood smoke crosses the path from a house half hidden on the low ridge there. The sun breaks beneath low cloud in the late afternoon; the darker earth gives way to a pale, sandy path. The scent of bracken warming in the sun again; rabbits up ahead become alert, upright little presences when they notice me. I already know I am cured. And at a junction of footpaths, one of which would lead me back homeward, I press on instead north toward Thorpeness through woodland filled with lengthening shadows, dark pools of brackish water, the subtle ululations of Wood Pigeon and Robins. In a stretch of tree-bound swamp fed by the Hundred River to the west someone has nailed a sign to a tree trunk: 'Beware Of The Crocodile'. In there, thick, dark, wet and primeval it is almost believable. Swampland mythologies and monsters. The history of malarial illness; of social misinterpretations casting these areas as hotbeds of degeneracy and despair. 'Blackwaters' and backwaters. Of stagnation, (natural and economic). Of bogeymen and bogeywomen. The 'others'. Swamp things.

At the end of the track, the woodland breaks on its western side to reveal a stretch of secluded reed beds where four Marsh Harriers (two nesting pairs?) are present. A male is cruising low over the beds and two females on the far side are waiting in some low hawthorn bushes, occasionally taking short circular flights. Swallows gather and flit through the reed tops unafraid.

The final stretch of my walk leads me back through Thorpeness. Its wood-clad cottages, golf course and mock-Italian bistro make me feel like I've walked into a film set for a cheap version of Miss Marple or something similar. A couple of young hippy women smoke cigarettes by the Meare, the boating pond full of Mute Swans; and jaded middle-aged couples sit at plastic tables eating and drinking and fending off the bug multitude while two Polish waiters smoke at the back door wishing they were elsewhere. The sun is giving its last for the day and I cut through to the beach where the Swallows, Swifts and Martins criss-cross its length, fast and low. I find a piece of driftwood worn by the action of the waves into the shape of a wing, slightly stylised, like an art-deco interpretation or similar, with the primary feathers clear and the coverts and secondaries in streaks of motion. It's an apt talisman, so I take it.

When I reach the caravan park at the edge of Aldeburgh town, almost home, I realise how fresh and healthy I feel. And I notice I have that 'juvenile' mood in my guts that I always get when I've been out walking for any length of time, when some semblance of peace has and expansion and silence has entered my body and which I first started to get when I was a teenager doing the same thing - that 'youth of eternal summers' feeling (to purloin a phrase). Four and a half hours out in the wilderness can do that.

North Warren and Thorpeness 4/6/06

Birdlife

Whitethroat - 2 Little Egret - 2
Wren - 1 Skylark - 2
Canada Goose - 9 Oystercatcher - 4
Redshank - 2 Linnet - 6
Magpie - 3 Jackdaw - 4
Reed Warbler - 2 Lapwing - 5
Heron - 1 Reed Bunting - 2
Long Tailed Tit - 3 Great Tit - 3
Sedge Warbler - 2 Blackcap - 3
Robin - 2 Jay - 1
Marsh Harrier - 4 Greenfinch -8
Goldfinch - 1 Cuckoo - 1
Green Woodpecker - 1

North Warren & Thorpeness 4/6/06