Free games for May

Sorry, sorry, sorry!  I've been terribly bad at keeping up with things but I am still here. Just spending fewer prolonged periods in front of a screen these days - and still don't seem to have enough time to do everything I want to do!  I've been on a bit of a creative trip to destinations unknown lately which has only served to confirm my suspicions that I am and always have been very much an analog girl.  In spite of that, blogging remains the source of such interest, pleasure and especially lovely connections that I really don't want to lose it, so I must put some effort in!

While I was out yesterday, my mind joined my feet in an aimless meander and I was reminded of how sometimes in my more prolific blogging moments I enjoyed taking you for a walk with me and I thought, perhaps I can actually get writing about that again? 

Come on, come with me!

We can go down beyond the main thoroughfare of the village and then turn off from the hub-bub of traffic to find ourselves in a quiet lane.  I adore this route, especially at this time of year.  We'll wander past the low roofed chapel now converted into a house, the backs of gardens of a red bricked Victorian terrace and then the human formalities start to give way to wild verges.  I always was a little drawn to the wilder verges of life.  This one would appear to be very attractive to cats too.

Then, well, it's blissful. There are meadows either side and you can smell and hear an English May without even looking; the heady scent of new blossom and cow parsley, an orchestra of insects, a symphony of lusty birdsong.  Wren, blackbird, robin, chiffchaff.  I get a funny (in a good way) feeling when I'm out like this - it must be connected to childhood memories, I'm sure.  I find the timelessness of it incredibly evocative, deep-rooted and uplifting - does it do something to the brain perhaps and induce a dopamine high?  For me it's as intoxicating as any physical substance, and I can still walk in a straight line.

The lane runs alongside a tributary and down to a weir but we won't go that far today, instead just take in the view of the lane and bridge curving around, the shadows of trees striating the road. 

If we were to carry on we could cross a couple of fields of cowpats (probably some cows too) and find one of those WWII pill boxes - this area of East Anglian countryside was one of the most heavily fortified in the country.  Defence lines of pillboxes, anti-tank blocks, deep ditches and barbed wire were drawn across the landscape to obstruct armoured columns which were expected to move inland should they manage to breach the ports and beaches.  I try to imagine how it must have felt living in such a rural and sparsely populated environment then, far removed from the cities, yet with these constant reminders of the possibility of invasion. But being here today it's so peaceful, whatever else is still sadly going on in the world in a similar vein, and I just can't.  Instead I'm lucky - lost in the sensory escapism of nature and my cherry-picked memories of perfect dappled riverbanks and bike rides and buttercups.  

For the return journey we can take a little detour past the allotments.  Say hello to the chickens and some ruddy-cheeked men in checked shirts discussing their cucumbers and on to the Village Hall.  There's a Book Fair here today - £1 to get in - how could you resist?   Mmm, the smell of old books, comics, postcards, maps....the smell of the hall itself, all coffee and floor polish and sunshine on curtains.  The low murmur of people enthusing about their stamp collections and Rupert annuals.  It's all rather lovely, a safe space for us nerdier members of the species.  And I'm drawn to so many items!  I come away with just this one, utterly enticed by its kitschness.

Heading home now we can pass this noble doorstep guardian

this old street grit bin which I really like for some weird reason

and take a couple of photos which I won't show here because instead I'll be sending them to John for his monthly photo challenge post!

Then dive back into the shade of trees and across the wooden footbridge over another part of the tributary which is looking particularly photogenic today.  An older man stops for a chat and talks about how he used to swim in there as a young lad, having lived here all his life. The resident swans will swim down here soon too, with cygnets to follow, hopefully.

At the bottom of the hill there's the young lad I often see with his skateboard. He's never with anyone else but is so obviously into his board and honing his skills on the tarmac path outside the big house.  I've often thought perhaps he's a bit of a loner, a little geeky, a little outside of the mainstream as he's always alone, practising, practising, not looking up.  But this time - oh, he has a girl with him!  A sweet-looking girl with an angelic face and a coy demeanour; he's holding her hand as she tries to keep her balance on the skateboard, gently encouraging her.  He looks over and for the first time he smiles.  I don't even know this lad but, well, I'm feeling all chuffed for him!

Onward up the hill and there's something alien hiding behind this hedge which makes me smile (turns out it's a small digger)

And just in case you need a further boost there are resources at hand a few doors up...

But sometimes I reckon a good walk can give you just the high you need.

"...you'll lose your mind and play

 free games for May..."

Local council

I can hear the spinning of spokes, the crunch of narrow tyres on the stony drive coming up behind me. Look around… Ohhh! Is that Paul? Paul Weller? And Mick Talbot too?! In full cycling gear, red, blue, black - bodies bent forward over the handlebars…? Yes! Riding up this long avenue between the ancient lime trees, following in my footsteps, here on such incredibly familiar ground. 

Unfortunately, I’d have to have a time machine to be in the same frame as these cycling Style Councillors – but I was there today, there on the long driveway, my absolute favourite local place to walk, just a short stroll round the corner from my home and yet I had never realised until now that it was also the setting for the video of ‘My Ever Changing Moods’. Its director, Tim Pope, creator of many a music promo for a huge number of artists (The The, Soft Cell and Talk Talk, Bowie and Neil Young all spring to mind) has a cameo part in it too. To be honest, I don’t think too much of the film, but the scenery… well, it's strange because it feels like a very close friend. One I share my secrets with, one who listens unconditionally, who soothes the soul in fractious times and makes me smile and feel alive too.  It’s a place, a haven, I wander up to so frequently and it has featured in quite a few posts here over the years. Up there today with the jackdaws chuckling in the treetops and the sheep in the distance, I took some photos to see if I could compare my view with those in the video, but the trees are still in their leafy Autumn cloaks and, thanks to storm damage over the decades, there are fewer of them than when Paul and Mick were here, and some new replacements too.   It's a place of ever changing moods; you'll just have to take my word for it.

An earlier photo from a Winter day

Still, I couldn’t stop the song going round and round in my head as I took my constitutional.  If you're a fan of the Style Council, you’d be very welcome too to come over with your bike some time and recreate that promo film – I can’t promise you the three dancing nymphs I'm afraid, but I could do you a packed lunch.

Here's the film:

A pic from today's wanderings

and one from 1984

Walk with me (to the caravan park from hell)

Not far from me, if you go up to where the witchfinders once roamed, where jackdaws chuckle from the treetops and devil's coach-horse beetles scuttle across your path, cursing you with their scorpionesque tails, this is where you'll find...

... the caravan park from hell!

Oh, what horrors lie in wait behind those mildewed panels?  

A broken door, a broken window... there's something sinister about the way that curtain hangs half in, half out, as if trapped whilst trying to make its desperate escape...

...as barbed wire spikes and stinging nettles conspire outside

Wait - is that a shadow I see moving behind the grubby nets?

(But I do love the way the patterns in the mould seem to perfectly mimic the intricacy of the lace...)

I'm glad to say there really is an innocent explanation for these creepy caravans - but why spoil a dark flight of fancy?!

Through the magic door

Yesterday evening, on my lone walk through fields and thickets, having climbed over stiles, snaked through kissing gates and played hide-and-seek with the jackdaws, I came across a mysterious doorway.

It set my imagination alight.

What would you want to find if you stepped through this doorway?  Would it be a portal to the past, or to the future?  To the inner pages of a long-lost book, or a scene in a black-and-white film?  To a dream... abstract and transient, but full of meaning?

I know what lies behind it...

But it's terribly boring, so I won't spoil your fantasy!

St Louis Union: Behind The Door

Walk with me (2 metres apart...)

How are you? 

It’s an up and down kind of time, isn’t it - thinking/worrying about stuff, people and livelihoods, trying not to overdose on the news, checking on friends, feeling indebted to all those keeping things going.  Then needing to give yourself some breaks, get lost in levity and little bits of normality and trivia wherever possible.  I think that’s just going to be a pattern for a while now.

So, like an obedient dog I took my daily walk yesterday and gave myself time to think some silly thoughts.   My walk incorporated a stop at the shop to buy some essentials – only a short list but a bottle of wine included, essential surely.   It was colder than I expected and every step felt like I was waging war against that northerly wind, one of those that’s so icy and strong it seemed to lock my features into what I can only imagine was a horrifying grimace. 

It was an interesting study in behaviour, though, and I guess many are experiencing this on our eerily quiet streets:  that each time another person came towards me on the pavement or path, one of us would actually stop, pull in and give way to let the other walk by at a safe distance. I realised it was exactly as if we were each driving an imaginary car (mine’s an E-type Jag then please, may as well go for the full fantasy).  Just like motoring down a narrow lane and using a passing place, with a little wave of the hand to say thank you. Maybe we should all start wearing miniature headlights on our coats that we could flash at each other, just to save any confusion, especially if it gets foggy.

Making the most of my outdoor exercise allowance I took a diversion along my favourite lane, noticing a pile of plucked feathers in the grass verge signifying a recent sparrowhawk attack (either that or someone really has got desperate on finding empty shelves in Tesco).   I could hear a chiffchaff in the tall lime trees, it’s a lovely sign of Spring.  If you don’t know already it’s very easy to identify the call of a chiffchaff.  It goes chiff chaff, chiff chaff…   And there were already newborn lambs in the field, all wobbly black legs and curious faces.  I know I'm lucky, things feel more normal when you’re surrounded by nature.

A chiffchaff

Most chiffchaffs migrate to warmer climates for the Winter

and return here to breed in Spring and Summer.

I found myself thinking (this is the silly, trivial thinking) about how, when this is over, we might all come out of it looking like something from the ‘70s.  It’s the haircuts I started with – are we all letting it grow wild, or risking a dodgy home trim from an unqualified family member?  The last time I properly cut anyone’s hair was in the '70s....  and that was a doll's...  (If only I'd realised her long glossy locks actually originated from just a handful of broadly spaced plugs! I was so mortified in case my mum found out what I'd done that I hid her in a box for a year).  Will pudding basins and comb-overs become fashionable again?  

What about teeth?  Perhaps classic vintage ivory will make a comeback, now there are no professional whitening services open for those who like their gnashers to glow like ultraviolet light.  Botox-addicts may learn to embrace their wrinkles and the lips of many female celebrities may finally return to normal human size; body hair will flourish again at last in the comfort of its own home.

And we’ll wear down the heels and soles on our footwear so much through all this daily walking that, with no heel bars open, we’ll decide to revert to longer-lasting platform shoes and boots…   

I finished my walk and as my frozen face thawed out and my hands lathered up the soap, I allowed myself a little (20-second) escapist reverie – a vivid image of a whole new world of very hairy, yellow-toothed, wrinkly, 1970s-throwback, platform-boot-wearing cave-dwellers emerging blinking into the light.  We'll all have terribly chapped hands too.  

Then I listened to this!

The Temptations: I Can't Get Next To You

Take care x

Reboot... reconnect

Desperately in need of a chance to reconnect with the land, with my feet, even with my boots  - perhaps the part of my brain that comes here too – I took myself out for a long, long overdue walk this morning. Blimey, I needed that.

I take a familiar route, but enjoy noticing unfamiliar things.  

Down the path at the side of the field, looking down, I take care to avoid falling down shallow holes.  Some have been rather curiously filled in with rubble and stones.

What’s that all about?  Actually I do know.  My neighbour P – a fantastically youthful 80-year old who still drives around in her black sports car – explained it the last time I walked this route and met her. 

“It’s J and his metal detector”, she’d said.   Oh, I’ve seen him with that!  Bless him.  With the mind of a 7-year old in the short, squat body of a 60-year old who wears very bad trousers, J is quite a local character.  I think his metal detector is probably one of those ‘Power Rangers’ models as once featured in an episode of  ‘Detectorists’.   And I don’t believe he’s ever found anything interesting with it, but he does at least remember to “always fill in your hole”.  Rather badly, though.

“Did you ever see him with his long black lace gloves?” P had asked after we’d discussed J’s treasure-hunting exploits.  I hadn’t.  “He used to wear them all the time…,” she continued,  “…even asked me if I wanted to try them on one day!”  

I keep walking, thinking about J with his metal detector, pushing broken bricks into shallow holes with stubby fingers clad in goth girl gloves. 

At the bottom of the hill I double back, head up the other side towards the church.  There’s a lovely, pretty row of old houses here, roofs all different heights, roses and jasmine round doorways and porches, a vast stretch of green in front of them.  A couple of estate agent signs and the line of cars parked along one side are the only indication of the century we’re in.  Then my attention is drawn to the broken wing mirror on the ground.  Next I notice a front windscreen and the intricate spiderweb pattern of its shattered glass.  And then the side window, completely smashed in.  Oh, and then the other side window too… both back windows… and the whole of the rear windscreen of the shiny black estate car, totally devoid of glass.  A little magic tree air freshener blowing about in the breeze inside.  This isn’t an accident, it’s an act of vengeance - there must be a story here, somewhere, a series of events.  The vandalised vehicle so much at odds with its picturesque, peaceful setting.

Familiar route, unfamiliar things.

I stride onward, up to my favourite tree-lined walk.

As I pass the entrance to the ancient manor house where they're preparing for this year's Hallowe'en events,  I find myself seriously considering whether or not I’d like to be a scarer. 

Can you be one if you wear glasses?, I ask myself.  Has anyone ever seen a bespectacled ghoul?  Perhaps I’d have to take them off just when jumping out at visitors.  Or simply wear a hood that covers my face, that’d work.  I quite fancy it.

Talking of scares, this is the walk where I saw the devil - my whip-cracking Lagartija Nick.  I am pleased to report that he is still here.

I stay on the wide grassy verge, look down and notice a little pile of hedgehog poo.  It always raises my spirits.  I know.  I have become something of a wildlife faeces expert;  sometimes it’s the only evidence you have of the nocturnal adventures of the secretive beings we share our space with while we sleep in our beds.

No, don’t think about the (presumably) nocturnal adventurers who vandalised that car now.  I hope they didn’t, erm, you know, in it.

I decided not to take a photo of the hedgehog poo - sorry...

Further on, I notice odd little metal things in the grass that J would have probably been excited to pick up with his metal detector - he wouldn’t even have needed to dig a hole.

What are they, what are they doing here?  Bits off a tractor?

Finally, I take a circular route back past the graveyard and the benches. There’s definitely something to be said for glancing down when you walk; you really do notice the unexpected.

As I get back home, I feel just as I had hoped I would – rebooted and reconnected, at least for now.  It was only natural that this blog post would follow.  Walking feels good - writing does too.

Crack the whip

I’ve walked up this pathway a thousand times, I’ve photographed the trees before: their mistletoe baubles, pollarded boughs, the shards of trunks struck by lightning – I’ve even shared them on these pages.  But every time I walk this way I swear I see something different.  Once it seemed to be a ghostly shape emerging from the mist.  Another time, a leaf was magically suspended in mid-air, twirling and spinning for ages without visible means of support until I realised it must be hanging from the finest thread of spider’s silk.  This is the place just to observe and when you do, you simply never know what you’ll find.

And that’s how, as I walked up there a couple of days ago, I came across the devil.

Although distant, he caught my eye immediately.  Why haven’t I seen him here before?  I can only assume he is also a shape-shifter, his form ever changing as the wind and the rain and the sun sculpt his features each week, each month.  But the moment I saw him, I recognized him, from this:

19th Century illustration

Well, actually, more from this:

My photo below doesn’t do him justice but, believe me, he had perfect white eyes, small dark horns and the bulbous hindquarters of the Sabbatic goat.  And then there's that whip - the way he was wielding that whip!

I walked around him very cautiously, and came home with my soul intact.  Dare I go up there again tomorrow and see what has become of him, though?  Perhaps by then he will have changed form once more, and all I’ll find is benign old broken tree stump sprouting a long, thin branch.

Bauhaus: Lagartija Nick

Walk with me (yet again)

It's been such a long a while since we walked together, so if you fancy coming out this afternoon, you'll be most welcome!

I'll take you to my usual haunts (you may have walked with me before).  Just lately I've been trying to get into the habit of doing a brisk three or four miles every other day, fitting it in around working and daylight (and rain).  Weirdly I keep bumping into the same people, no matter what time I set out;  perhaps they just walk around all day?  One thing I've noticed too, is that those lovely older ladies I often see, who manage to keep slender and bright-eyed even into their 70s and 80s,  always wear lipstick.  Somehow it gives them a look of youthful joie de vivre.  I rarely go out without mine either, so excuse me while I just apply it...

Anyway, we'll go up to the long familiar path lined with lime trees which I know is three quarters of a mile long so it's good way to measure distance - and if you've come here with me before, you'll know I love the trees with their weird angular shapes created by previous pollarding and huge spheres of mistletoe hanging from the branches like Christmas tree baubles.

We'll go and see the cattle.  They're English Longhorns, different from the Texas ones, with horns that curve round to sort of frame their gentle faces, and known for being a friendly breed.

The sky briefly turns a weird shade of yellow, with big grey galleon clouds, but I'm looking at the cow!

 One walks across the field barely able to lift its legs out of the heavy, cloying mud.  At least we can tentatively tread the grassy verges to avoid the worst of the puddles.

I want to show you the old wooden store (not exactly a shed, but more than just a crate - so I'm not sure what to call it) where they keep the incendiary devices.  It always makes me smile to see the hand-painted sign which reads 'DANGER! EXPLOSIVES!' on an innocuous looking route that meanders between wide, tranquil fields and copses - but it's here they keep stuff for popular 'Wartime Re-enactment' days.  At least that's what I've always thought.

I haven't been out to this bit since the Summer - but today it doesn't look the same, the words have worn off the sign, the structure is collapsing.  It could be a den.  Nice smell of woodsmoke too.

A bit too muddy to continue (I'm not wearing the right boots) so let's head back towards the road, but we'll take a back route, past the allotments.  Down past the free-range chickens in their huge pen, who all come running up to the fence with their stumpy wings flapping when I stop to say hello.

Some dead sunflower heads catch my eye - I just like the way they look.

Plus I want to show you the lovely old signage that's been left on one of the walls round this way.  Gorgeous lettering.

Funnily enough this is the first time I've noticed how well it has weathered compared with these adjacent, far more recent signs.

And one more sign (I couldn't help wondering if the home-owner was a Loudon Wainwright III fan!)

Now coming into view is one of our famed 'crinkle-crankle' walls on the left, designed to protect fruit trees growing in its sheltered curves.  It's struck me just now that this view has probably remained pretty much unchanged in the last few hundred years.

Okay, we can join up with the main street now and stop off at the Co-op, I need to buy a bag of birdfood and some mushrooms.

Then up the hill and back to home, just in time before the rain.

Weirdness on an English walk

Not quite the follow-up to my last post that I was intending, but I'm still on the subject of fear in the fields of England....

‘Would it kill you to say hello on a country walk?’ is the question asked in this article today and I found it quite apt.

What do you do?  Generally I say a quiet “hello” or at least smile.  Seems  to me that if you’re on an empty path with no-one around apart from one other person heading your way, who then passes within touching distance,  it’d actually be quite odd not to openly acknowledge their existence.   Even if only with a cursory nod of the head – it doesn’t have to be some big, bold fanfare of a greeting, just a subtle signal that communicates, ”I’m human and so are you”.  At the same time, I know that when walking alone it’s often to be exactly that – alone - so a lengthy chat about the weather isn’t on everyone’s agenda.    But a smile will do.  A smile and a “hello” if it feels right, and then on your way.

Yesterday I went out for some fresh air and took a familiar route, part of which is up the long drive to a manor house, open to the public.  You can park along it too;  people often leave their cars on the verge and then walk their dogs across the adjacent fields. 

As I made my way down it I passed a lone parked car and was faintly aware of a grey-haired woman behind its open boot –  some yards away to my right.  Bearing in mind what I said above, I turned my head briefly in her direction and smiled.  It was one of those vague expressions you cast out when you’re not really sure… not close enough to speak but not far enough away to pretend you can’t see the other person.   It was little more than a glance really.  I couldn’t even see her response as she was obscured by the raised boot of her hatchback but I wasn’t bothered, the point was I’d just acknowledged her presence with a quick friendly gesture as I went by.

I was still walking away when I became aware of her voice.  I thought she must have had a child in the car, or perhaps a dog – I couldn’t tell.  She sounded cross, though.  Oh dear, maybe it was a hen-pecked husband?!  But she was also getting louder, as if to compensate for the increasing distance between us – as if for some reason she wanted to keep me within earshot.  Then I started to tune in to what she was actually saying…

“…Oh yes, that’s it, laugh at me.  You just laugh, why don’t you?  Oh, because my boot doesn’t work and I’m having to hold it up with my hands, oh yes, that’s very funny, isn’t it, and you think you’re so clever and you….” etc. etc. etc.

She got louder….. this was sounding very aggressive now…  really shouting.  As I got further away it was developing into quite an indecipherable tirade and all I could make out was

“you…. (something or other)” 

“(something or other) you”

“(something) YOU (something)”

and it suddenly dawned on me who this “you” was:

Me !

I know, I know, I should have just kept walking away but two things were bugging me – one was that  I still couldn’t really understand if she was talking to me and if so I wanted to know - why? what?  The other thought flashing through my brain was that, while I’d walked merrily past, was she actually struggling with her car and thus perceiving my benign smile as rude (in the way that you would if you dropped your bag of shopping all over the street and someone went by with a grin without stopping to help you pick it up)?  I know, I over-think these things.   But perhaps I could make up for this misunderstanding by helping her now; maybe she was in trouble, and frustrated?   So, anyway, I stopped.  I walked slowly back towards her and I said – very gently – “I’m sorry, but were you speaking to me…?”

Studiously avoiding looking in my direction, she yelled angrily, “NOT PARTICULARLY!”  (Weird).  She was short and stout, probably in her early‘70s, apparently sober, very well-spoken, neatly dressed and unbelievably stressed.  By now I could see there was definitely no-one else in the car (no hen-pecked husband.  At least not here).

I  wanted to be conciliatory, calming.  “I'd only smiled to say hello,” I ventured, not moving any closer “I didn’t know if you wanted some help…”  but she drowned me out, almost hysterically  – 

“Go away! 

Go away!    

GO!   

AWAY!”

I don’t know if I can impart here quite how weird it was.  I'm sure it just sounds daft, but it was so bizarre.  I think it felt particularly surreal because I was simply taking a tranquil country walk in a public place, minding my own business, at peace with the world and with myself, when I suddenly found myself on the receiving end of this abuse and misplaced aggression, and from someone whose external appearance seemed at odds with her behaviour, if you know what I mean.   She spoke to (I mean, shouted at) me as if I was somebody else, someone who wasn’t me.  I’m a fairly small, non-threatening, middle-aged female… and here’s an older woman bawling at me to “Go away!”  like I was some kind of thug.  That’s what got to me, I suppose.

I muttered “Okay, bye” (no idea why!)  turned back around and walked briskly home, but was surprised to find after a few minutes my legs started to feel wobbly and my eyes began watering.  Silly, I know, but I guess it was just a bit of a shock.

I also wondered what was behind it all, what else she may do or had already done, and if she will get the psychiatric help she needs.  Something's clearly wrong.

Plus I’ll be more careful about smiling at people in the future.  And I've kind of gone off the idea of walking up that route again.  Shame.

Fear and A Field In England, part one

I’m walking, alone.  It’s late afternoon and the sun is out, I’m dressed for winter but surprised at the warmth;  I have to undo the buttons on my jacket.  Venture along a familiar route, through a field of horned sheep, over the stile, up past the ancient manor house and then I’m out in open farmland, beyond my usual course.  Haven’t been this far in years.

Huge flat fields stretch to the left and to the right, tiny distant trees pin the sky to the ground like tent pegs.  A well-worn path leads down into a dip, next to a wooded area, and I make my way towards it.  I stop for a moment first just to look around, take it all in: this beautiful, peaceful English countryside.  There is not a sound… not a single sound.  Nothing.  I’m only twenty minutes, half an hour maybe, from home,  but somehow it could be hours, days… my sense of being away from everything and everyone is such that it's almost overwhelming and very slightly unnerving.  As I proceed down the path getting nearer to the trees I can see, quite literally, for miles: not a soul around.

Or so I think.

I hear a rustling, some kind of surreptitious-sounding movement, coming from the large cluster of trees.   I can’t see much there, just the dark shapes of trunks and broken branches knitted together, the sun too low now to cast light on the ground between them nor on anything stirring amongst them.

It will be a fox.  Or a pair of woodpigeons, maybe.  Birds, yes - of course!  But still I stop.  Should I just keep walking… walking right towards and past those trees…past the noise...  or should I simply turn around now and head back? 

I’m too warm in this heavy jacket to run…. my feet are tired… no phone…  is it ridiculous that I’m even thinking like this (whatever ‘like this’  is?) when I’m only walking in a field in England on a lovely, sunny March afternoon?  Regardless, that’s what I do: turn around and retrace my steps, and I do so a little more briskly than before.  We’re just not used to being this alone, are we?  Just not used to the idea that if something were to ‘happen’, even if it was nothing more sinister than tripping over and spraining my ankle, out here I am helpless.   And then there are those darker thoughts… of what?... of the madman with his axe waiting behind a twisted elm?

Somewhere in the woods round here, only a few years ago, the body of man who’d gone missing was found; he’d hanged himself.  If you really mean it then this is the place to do it – I guess he hoped he’d never be located, never subject some stranger to the trauma of that macabre discovery (sadly he failed in that respect).  Not like those who hang themselves in their homes, or who throw themselves under trains.  This would be the place - to leave your body to the elements, let rain and sun and wind break you down and magpies peck at your remains, never witnessed by another human.  Just a fox.  Or a pair of woodpigeons, maybe.

----

I don’t look over my shoulder… I just walk back a lot faster than I’d walked there, and try not to be freaked out when I catch a sudden glimpse of my shadow in close pursuit.

-----

Later in the evening I watch the film ‘A Field In England’.  I’ll tell you what I think of it next time!

Treetime

Out walking today between the long line of trees that lead up to a manor house, I was struck by the beautiful shapes created by their previous pollarding.  Many of the enlarged stumpy ends of boughs from which the spindly new growths spring at awkward angles resembled animal heads.  I could see pigs with their blunt snouts and narrow eyes, cattle with flared nostrils and deer with fantastical antlers, entwined and knotted with mistletoe.  I wished I could capture them with my camera, but I knew the effect would be lost.  These imaginary creatures wouldn't survive the flatness of photography.

But I took pictures of the trees anyway.

Apart from zooming in against the light here, no special effects were needed.  I think of those marbled pictures you can make by pouring ink on oily water, or the result of blowing paint across paper with a straw.

I love this tree - surely some kind of monster:

But I also love how black and white can create a certain spookiness

It seems fitting that some scenes from 'Witchfinder General' were filmed right here.

Like a butchered animal carcass this trunk looks as if it's been cleaved in two:

And finally...