Planting, prose and photography: creative field notes from the garden and beyond.
It seems apt to spend the last day of the year retracing the steps that became so commonplace within it. This three and a half mile walk was not one that could have become any more familiar, but one that 2020 has undoubtedly made more intimate. Today the path is cold in the truest sense… Continue reading MMXX
Swathes of moorland grit and heather, dusted in the rugged russet of a dry November day. Waning branches wave skeins of yellowing leaves, the slender keys to a kingdom of expanse that has been unlocked just for us. The cold clods of yesterday's earth still shelter inside the whorls of my fingertips; grainy tributaries that… Continue reading Keys to the kingdom.
An early morning walk, a Sunday; but to label the day detracts from the nondescript beauty of anonymity-cloaking fog. Engulfed in silence, enveloped with questions, engorged with the opportunity to simply escape. A lone tree stands black and bleak in contrast to the faded greens below and the grey whites that swirl behind its branches… Continue reading Fog: the nourishing metamorphosis
It’s fair to say that humans are constantly searching for meaning. Some look for it in possessions, material objects, status; others in jobs, careers, relationships. But there’s a growing number of us seeking out meaning in the everyday and the everyday world around us. And on a balmy October Saturday in Nottingham, I found a… Continue reading Community & Connection: Shared Moments of Meaning
This is perhaps the first time in living memory that I have truly craved rain. I’m not talking about a half-hearted desire for precipitation, but an ardent anticipation for rainfall; something that has built slowly and steadily over the last few weeks. A genuine groundswell of feeling within, that something is amiss, not quite right:… Continue reading The Silent Symphony of Rain
I sit at the end of the garden and bask in the early hours of the day, alive with a frenetic energy, yet simultaneously calming. The cool breeze is respite for the soul, as well as the body, and I embrace and enjoy the cool sensation of the early morning air across my arms and… Continue reading Falling twigs and golden light: field notes from the garden, 20-22.04.18
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.
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
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. 