Tuesday This morning the park is damp with dew. It’s light relief from the dry crunch the grass has been making recently. A regular I’ve chatted to over the years throws a ball for his rescue dog and the dog races to catch it. Every time I see this man his pace has slowed further. […]
Monday Walk towards two women sitting on a bench in the wood. Chatting quietly they’re looking up, contemplating the sky. This area was cut back a while ago to make a clearer route for bats. In the winter everything is ground level, although right now, ferns and rosebay willow herb (fireweed) are more than shoulder […]
Monday 13 July It feels like there was a party in the wood and now it’s suffering the consequences. The birds are silent. Catkins drape across every path, branch and twig like spent party streamers. Fallen trunks look twice as bare, exhausted and drying out slowly. Tuesday 14 July Sunrise: 4:59am There are blackberries ripening […]
“Yeah he was big on conspiracy theories. Like, instead of just teaching us carpentry he made us watch these videos about how NASA used a green screen an’ all that. So, do you believe in climate change then?” “What? You… Wait, he said what?” Telling your teenaged students that NASA faked the moon landings and […]
Monday “Do you do this every week?” There’s trash in the open grass and trash by the bench. But there’s also a man on the bench admiring the view. As I didn’t want to disturb him, I was heading for the trash in the open first. I say sort of, and walk over. He tells […]
Monday “Who is the man with the black umbrella?” “There are thirty guns in the box.” I’ve started using Duolingo again. I could potentially weave black-umbrella man into the Duolingo story, but I’m less sure about thirty guns in a box. That said, these sentences do seem to fit together. I just completed a lesson to […]
Two weekends ago we went to an open garden day in our neighbourhood. One of the gardens was long, wide and bursting with oxeye daisies. They were waist high with a simple grassy path weaving through the middle – an absolute joy. People said yes but what is the garden without the daisies, what happens […]
The coffin was light because she was old and somewhat diminished when she was placed inside. But the surface looked like metal and no matter what we said, he assumed it had a weight to it. In a break with protocol he climbed low on to the counter, squatted like an athlete doing deadlifts at […]
18 May “Fuck!” I make a run for the stile as the horses pound their way downhill. I was up with the singing wren at 5:19am and out in the sunshine later. There’s a smell of woodsmoke in the air and looking down from the top of the Silent Wood I can see why. The […]
Catching up. Spring is a good time to go to Greece because all the wildflowers are out. The glossy blood-red poppies, chamomile daisies, lantana and rock roses, small purple scabious, tall wild mallow. They’re all over the archaeological sites and knee deep under the silver-green olive trees. The ice saints are in the news at […]
