Planting, prose and photography: creative field notes from the garden and beyond.
The April dusk is heavy with air, thick with atmosphere, and laden with thoughts. A storm is most certainly brewing, but that heady brew is charged with an electricity that lends magic both to the evening, and the soul. The changing of the clocks has bequeathed the gift of encroaching light to the evenings once… Continue reading A charged dusk and beating bat’s wings: field notes from the garden 06.04.18
Today contained a period of very special moments: that rare occasion when the universe stitches a few hours together with a thread made from infinity herself; an afternoon where eyes could feast upon the unfathomable richness of the purest azure sky. Heaven and earth pulsed achingly close to one another, as Nature dropped one of… Continue reading A dropped veil and a February epiphany.
There’s a new sense of life in the garden today; discernibly so. I had toyed with writing ‘perceptibly so’ but thought that ‘perception’ implied somewhat of an effort, or a concerted focus – and that would betray the ease in which nature is making itself visible, heard and felt on this February Sunday morning. Before… Continue reading A dancing starling and buds of promise: field notes from the garden 18.02.18
I challenge anyone to find something humbler, and yet containing more untold majesty, promise and beauty, than the unassuming seed packet. A rudimentary paper packaging, containing the tiniest of morsels, these kernels of truth are bursting to tell their story in full, technicolour glory. The fact that snowdrops, iris and crocus are now punctuating the… Continue reading The Great British Seed Off
For the (very) amateur photographer, sheep make surprisingly good subjects. As I collated a few images to share here, I laboured over the words to accompany them. Yet I soon realised that sheep have been playing a significant role in my life for years. Born and bred in Sussex, I have spent veritable swathes of… Continue reading Ovies aries: a written and visual homage to our humble sheep.
Early morning hours at the weekend have the capacity to be both beguiling and bewitching. I have stood outside at 8am and experienced an entire hour accelerate in the blink of an eye; I have stood outside at 8am and felt the pulse of existence slowed to a state of stasis, where an entire world… Continue reading Radiant sky and long-tailed tits: field notes from the garden 04.02.18
It is thought that ‘January’ derives its name from Janus, the Roman god of new beginnings, time, gates, doorways, passages and endings. A god of two faces, one faces forward, while one looks back. As we prepare to cross from December into the month of January, like the Janus of mythology, I am looking forward… Continue reading My gardening resolutions for 2018
Five days have now elapsed since Christmas, and we seem to have reached peak ‘in-between-ness’. The rhythm and pulse of life has become distorted; erratic, much like the swirling torrents of water beneath me in the stream. A day of rain, sleet and snow, in addition to the continuing meltwater from the moors, has turned… Continue reading Brown torrents and shooting bulbs: field notes from the garden 30.12.17
A few weeks ago, I found a dozen or so camassia bulbs in the shed, that I had lifted and cleaned earlier in the autumn. They have been growing quite happily where they sat in the shed, but I've brought three inside to keep a closer eye on. Bulb vases always evoke something special. To… Continue reading Looking forward through the lens of a bulb vase.
Cold, damp, dark and defeated: if autumn is a slow exhale, then the depths of December days like this are the death rattle. And yet, whilst the garden matter sinks ever deeper into a natural stasis, birdlife continues. The abundance of tits, finches, blackbirds, pigeons and sparrows in the garden only highlights their increasing reliance… Continue reading A lone woodpecker and horizontal rain: field notes from the garden 17.12.17
A Seasoned Soul. 