What do we know

I saw so much that day, but it’s the ephemeral things that I can’t get out of my head.

Pine tree tops
In the blue night
frost haze, the sky glows
with the moon
pine tree tops
bend snow-blue, fade
into sky, frost, starlight.
The creak of boots.
Rabbit tracks, deer tracks,
what do we know.

                   Gary Snyder

Happy Belated Midsummer

Midsummer this year was a far gentler affair than last years epic  night walk up Snowdon - wow, was that really a whole year ago? R and I went instead to visit his parents in Hampshire and had a peaceful time strolling about in the countryside, eating his mothers home made delicious Victoria sponge cake and generally taking it easy. Midsummer is a special time though, and we spent midsummer eve skulking about in the fields wondering what would be the best way to mark it. Remnants of freshly harvested hay laying strewn about in the grass seemed too good not to play with, so we constructed a double spiral and spent a giggly half hour or so walking it’s curves as if it were a labyrynth, occasionally jumping into or out of the centres and generally thinking about how midsummer is one of the hinges of the year. Everything (apart from birdsong, which is already thinning) now feels to be at it’s peak, but already we are on our way to autumn.

Heavy workloads mean that we are both early to bed these days, but I suffer from insomnia and vowed to myself that if I awoke in the early hours I would bend this curse to my advantage. Sure enough I was wide awake at 4.20 am, so I quietly dressed and went outside. I’m glad I did. I’d hardly been out of the door ten minutes when I noticed a dark shape moving at the far end of the field. I raised my binoculars expecting a rabbit and instead was delighted to see a fox, apparently pounce-hunting for voles. I was hidden from view by a gatepost; the creature had no idea I was there so I settled to watch.  I assumed after a few pounces that foxy was having no luck, but then a second fox jumped up from the short grass, and the two leggy creatures started frolicking like spring lambs. It was a vixen and her mate; rather than hunting she’d been playing, trying to rouse him from a doze! I was entranced. Of course at this time of year I should have realised that there was something missing from this picture but it wasn’t missing for long as a third fox, their single cub, bounded out of the hedgerow and joined the game. They scampered and raced, cavorted and leapt, throwing bits of hay like confetti as they played. This went on for ten minutes or more, until one of the cubs’ games of hide and seek went on a little longer than before and I realised they had melted into the hedgerow for good.

I wandered across the fields hopeful of a badger sighting, and the pale dawn arrived rose petal white – a cloudy day. No badgers, they were probably already in bed as I was dressing, but I did get to see another fine dog fox on his way home from hunting. Wild foxed these – not your insolent unafraid urban critters but wary and suspicious, and for very good reason.  It was about six am when I wandered back over stubbly fields and already the sound of shotguns was punctuating the air. Hampshire is not a good place to live if you are furred or feathered, or so it seems to me. As I walked I found this pheasent’s egg, raided by one of the foxes perhaps or even a stoat.

Pheasants, introduced to this country purely as moving targets and preyed on by all and sundry may be cossetted by gamekeepers for the early part of their lives, but seeing that broken egg reminded me that theirs is a crummy lot really. Heartily glad to be top of the food chain I made my way back to the house.

Blogiversary…now we are 2!

Today I settled down to do some much overdue writing for this blog when I noticed there was something familiar about the date.  After a bit of embarrassed rummaging I found that yes indeed, today is the second anniversary of The Birds In The Meadow.

It’s so easy for me to let dates like that go by,  if I know what day it is at all I consider that good going. I missed the first anniversary and the fact that I’ve made it this far without celebrating seems wrong, so I’ve decided to have a whole week of festivities!

But before I write any more about that I’m going to think about these two years past and why blogging, crafting and this site mean so much to me.

To me, this site is…

• A diary. I never realised just how much blogging would become a record of some of the best bits of my life. I don’t write about much personal stuff here, but looking back over what I’ve written I see that this blog has grown into a living souvenir of big adventures, small insights and those ephemeral little things spotted along the way. Just looking back over these two years in the blog is often enough to keep me going when life feels rough.
• An open window. Through writing here I’ve also been given the chance to enter the insightful, funny, imaginative inner worlds of other people who write their own blogs. Some of these discoveries have been truly inspirational in ways that go beyond anything I could write here, and to those whose blogs I read I have to say a really big thank you for letting me in. Your candour, humour and warmth make being stuck behind a computer for several hours a day a far more rewarding experience, and encourages me with my own efforts.
• An apprenticeship. Since I opened the shop I’ve watched my practical crafting skills go from strength to strength. The imagination and diligence it takes to ensure that everything is robustly made and true to my recycled, repurposed or vintage ideal has tested my patience, tenacity and occasionally the will to live, but it’s been worth it just to know that what I make does not, as the old chestnut goes, cost the earth. What’s even better is knowing that there are people out there who care about these things as much as I do, and are prepared to take a chance on ordering from a small scale designer like me.
• A place of learning. I’m no wildlife expert; I have curiosity and a keen eye, and these things alone have got me a long way in the past. As a direct result of writing here and reading other nature blogs, my curiosity had become voracious and I realise with each passing day how little I know but want to know. I’ve learned more about insects and wildflowers in these past two years than I probably learned in the lifetime that went before,  but I’ve barely scratched the surface. I read field guides as if they were novels and devour literature on local wildlife wherever I go, but I’m still hungry. The learning I should have started in childhood only really got into full swing quite recently, and as direct result of researching stuff to write about here, I’m musing very tentitavely on taking some higher education.

In honour of these things and many more, I’d like to offer you a generous slice of cake, a glass of whatever takes your fancy and a toast to all the good things that blogging and the internet can bring. Remind me of some more! What are you raising that glass to?

Where the wild things are

You don’t have to go walking in glamorous, beautiful country locations to find little patches of wildness. Any city, no matter how sterile on first examination has a virile crust of life that cannot be completely scoured from it’s surface, however hostile or oblivious the resident humans are.  I’ve churned out the rural eye-candy many a time here, but I’d be falling into a trap if I didn’t pay homage to the life I see all around me in London.  It goes about it’s own business; it does not care about or even notice us.  I love all the signs of wildness, the signs that we absolutely have not and hopefully never will subdue the earth.

The ferns in the brickwork where the drainpipe leaks

The mosquito larvae thriving unwanted in the upturned dustbin lid

The fox earth in the junk of a neglected garden

The pioneer weeds thronging a cracked pavement

The Kestrel falling out of a blue sky to take an unseen mouse a yard from where you stand, waiting for a bus.

The mouse it’s-self, uninvited, scratching in a cupboard.

Blackbirds quarreling over an apple core

Fireweed reclaiming derelict buildings

Ash saplings infesting a lawn.

The heron stealing expensive fish from your pond,

A mistle thrush and it’s drowsy song atop a tall lamp-post on a busy intersection at twilight

The robins singing in every single avenue tree as you reel home late from the pub

The patina of moss that returns again and again to the brick wall

All life is sacred.

The Earth Is Burning

All yesterday I kept coming to my computer to upload and share images of  a snowy, festive London, and every time I tried my eye was caught by news of unfolding devastation in Australia. It seemed grossly inappropriate; I just couldn’t do it. Harrowing eye witness accounts of entire towns lost in a four storey conflagration made the British reaction to our own extreme weather event feel mortifying,  almost laughably hobbit like – people complaining because they couldn’t get to work? Stamping their feet in indignation when our otherwise gentle climate throws a wobbly and we – horror of horrors – run out of grit for the roads? I do not mean to belittle the danger in our recent unusually heavy snow and rain (people have died here) but I’ve been observing our nations joyless reaction to the whiteout with a growing sense of disbelief. Actually, I’ll qualify that last remark by saying that every single “real” human being I’ve spoken to has loved the unaccustomed snow (the rain not so much) and the carnivalesque effect it has on human behaviour. The unfolding news in Australia has I hope given a new sense of perspective to politicians and press who enjoy the whipping up of shamefully petty discontent and anger to such futile and self serving effect.

I’m currently looking out of my window at swirling black rain clouds and hissing rain; the beauty of last week utterly vanished, we have a leaking roof in the kitchen and it’s so dark here I’m having to work with the light on. There’s no sign that the rain will let up any time this week, and right now it feels like it could easily go on forever. Right now however I’m also profoundly glad of these cold soaking conditions – my dreams have been scorching, acrid.

Ranting about climate change at this point is horribly tempting but then I’d be no better than the politicians and the press – hijacking real and terrible human suffering to pursue an agenda. Right now I just want to express my horror and sympathy to the Australian people, and to anyone with loved ones there.

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