Arrest yourself on a country walk by drinking in the surroundings: shimmering leaves, whispering grasses, exuberant colour of stems or twisted torso of bare tree. Nature throws out high design. Where we live, the
Category: Dogs or wildlife
Pugs dressed for Midsummer Night’s Dream
Yesterday we drove up to Norfolk to a pug tea party in the grounds of Wood Hall, Hilgay. This was laid on by PDWRA – the charity for rescuing and rehoming pugs. They run regular Garden parties in the summer months.
A bee magnet
This morning Phacelia tanacetifolia was furry blue blur in my garden. Pulling in the bees and the hover flies too. Originally from Mexico, it is frequently planted round the headlands of fields by organic farmers to attract pollinating insects.
Monochrome zone: a black and white walk round my village today
A Black and White walk round my village today. I just love it that a in a stride about outside all bright shades have been erased and noise is muffled and bleached out. Snow glare has sapped tone and hue from the palette and turned the gaze over to sharp silhouettes.
If you go into the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise
Serried timber trees, broad trunked with fly agaric mushrooms poking through dead leaves. Why is this the popular image of a wood? Should we blame Racey Helps or Beatrix Potter? Apparently not. According to Oliver Rackham, (the historian of the English countryside) this woodland askew view is to be blamed on the “scientists and savants…
This tree is so dead it is alive
The blasted trunk, hit by lightening, stands it’s ground in the middle of a footpath. As a stately thing, the tree rules over young sweet chestnuts. Though dead as a dodo and sloughing away its lignified dead cells bit by by, it provides the ultimate wildlife habitat. A sculpture too, to be coveted for a…
Things I like in Battersea Park
There are many. It starts before stepping off Chelsea Bridge heading south. The burger van. Greasey smell and crumpled paper not-quite-in-the- bin to contrast with the tai chi. The bicycling, the limber upping, the joggers, runners, the dog walkers. And just the plain old A to Bers. Walking in the dappled shade from the avenues…