Walled Garden

The walled garden at The Whittern in Herefordshire where we stayed last week. The evening sunshine, when we had it, was wonderful and produced some gorgeous greens when the beech hedges were backlit. I captured the effect over a couple of evenings. I was just in time as the hedges were trimmed the day after I finished this.

Titley, Herefordshire

Three sketches made near Titley in Herefordshire whilst on a recent walk: a large beech tree growing in an old quarry, a sunken road leading down to the River Arrow and an old barn. These worked well - I had better lighting (no bright sunshine) and comfortable places in which to perch.

Westonbury Water Garden

The cuckoo clock at Westonbury Water Garden near Pembridge in Herefordshire. A beautiful, luscious garden with wonderful plants and quirky follies. Halfway into drawing this the sun came out which made seeing the image on my iPad almost impossible, plus it was very hot. Still, I was pleased with the result.

Croft Castle Illustration Project

In October 2015 I worked on an illustration project based around the National Trust property of Croft Castle in north Herefordshire. I visited the property over two days and recorded in words and pictures all the things that inspired me: people, the garden, wildlife, trees, and much more. This was a self-initiated piece of work that I had digitally printed as a 12 page A4 booklet. 60 copies were printed and given as Christmas presents to friends, family and the National Trust. Five sample pages are shown here.

Croft Ambrey Sunset

Writing based on notes made Thursday 5 July 2012
I’ve just driven up from Bedfordshire and now, at  around 8.30pm I have parked at Croft Castle. It is a superb evening - warm, some sunshine between the clouds and everywhere is so green after all the rain we have had. Little did I know that the next day would bring a day of almost continuous rain and many flooded roads.

I walk up onto Croft Ambrey and sit at the western promontory. The sun is a glorious bright red and within a couple of minutes it has dropped below the western welsh hills. I manage to do a quick sketch on my iPad of the view before the light begins to fade too much.

The top of the hill fort is awash with soft grasses and pink foxgloves. The ground is so wet and as there are no sheep grazing here at the moment the place is beginning to look a little overgrown. As I walk back down the hill three strong scents surround me. Bracken, barley flowers and freshly mown grass. In the dampness it seems as though the fragrances are almost overpowering. They fill the air which is saturated with the smell of nature. It is very quiet here - almost unbelievably so. How different to the inherently scentless towns we live in that only create their own smells though the activity of humans. In a place surrounded by bricks and concrete we create the smells of car exhausts, cafe’s, rubbish, cigarettes etc.  There is no innate natural fragrance. Only nature has the power to generate such things - and primarily it is the plant kingdom that has the upper hand here.

Often people seem to talk about the search for God. Where is he? How can I know Him? To me, when I am in a place like this there is no need to search for God. God is all around me. It is the natural world - its essence of being. The meaning of life becomes the gift of being able to enjoy its beauty and to share in it. Yet through selfishness we often seem to want something more aligned to a consumable faith.

Modern towns and cities are far removed from a sense of ecological living where small scale, low impact sustainable communities can live in harmony with the natural world without being dependent upon the superstructure of imported consumables and the problems of mass waste production. Unfortunately the demands of a massive population and economies of scale favour modernism rather than the ecological.

The Farm

Today I went back to my birthplace. It was, quite literally, the place where I was born, back in 1965. It's not far from Tenbury Wells, in a fairly isolated place down a long steep hill and with extensive views over towards Clee Hill. It is no longer a working farm as such, that all came to end when my father pulled out of farming in the early 1970's. The large acreage of apple trees was pulled up and the greenhouses full of tomatoes and lettuces were dismantled. It never really became profitable and my father then left the family to pursue an isolated career as a painter and shunning all mod-cons.

The landscape here is beautiful and the photo doesn't do it justice. There are steep hills, old apple and cherry orchards and steep sided wooded gullys full of wild garlic. All on a deep red clay soil that is characteristic of the area.

Although the place still carries a sense of isolation and long lost rural idyl, it has changed. All the old tumbled down cottages that I remember as a child are now more like executive dwellings. An old road we used to drive down over a stream is almost undiscernable beside a newer crossing. I can still find the dam my father built across a stream to provide a source of water for irrigating his crops, though it has all silted up. A row of lombardy poplar trees planted as a windbreak for an apple orchard still stands as an unusual looking hedgerow in the middle of two fields of sheep.

I go back there every few years or so. I wanted to go back there again now because I knew it would look wonderful in the spring, but also because I have been trying to look back at my childhood as an aid to sorting out a few things from a psychological view. I thought it might be an emotional visit, but somehow it wasn't what I was expecting. In a sense I feel I could be 'returning' here for while. My mother is returning to Tenbury Wells to live in a retirement home and so I might be spending a bit more time re-visiting this area when I come up and stay. It feels odd in a way that I remember a landscape here that younger people or those moving into the area will probably not be aware of. I am aware of my age and sense of history and how my father worked and changed the landscape here and his legacy can still be found if you look hard enough.

Landscape of Ice

North Herefordshire, 11 February 2012
Morning walk: Lyepole/Paradise Bridge - Sned Wood - Lower Lye - Barnett Wood - The Camp - Upper Lye. Afternoon walk: Shobdon Hill Wood.

Riverside Dawn
I arrive at Paradise bridge at around 5.30am on a cold, frosty morning. There is a small stream tumbling off the hillside and I park the car by this so that I can listen it as I doze in the car for an hour or so. The moon is bright and the landscape far from dark. It is bitterly cold and a hard frost has brought ice to everything. Apparently there was a slight dusting of snow yesterday and now, under the moonlight, the hills and fields reveal their silhouettes even though the sun will not rise for another hour or so.

The last couple of weeks have been very cold with snow and frost in many parts for the country. I left home in Bedfordshire yesterday with several inches of snow on the ground and had decided not to camp out in the car overnight this time just in case it was too cold. I actually felt cosy as I lay back in the car for I had piled on the layers and covered my legs and feet up well to keep warm.

A gentle breeze bites through me as I walk out into the brightening landscape. Some cloud obscured the moon a little while ago but the day is forecast to be clear and sunny. The blue-grey hazy hills around me look stunning against the grey sky and pale frosty fields. This is a landscape I feel at home in, and one that draws me back time and time again. The river gurgles gently under the old stone bridge. Blackbirds begin to chatter and an occasional dipper flies by with its distinctive 'cheep cheep'. I always seem them here. After the warmth of January this cold spell is a reminder of how winter can take hold any time. February often used to seem a dark and dead month in my younger days - the very end of the past year before nature springs to life. But now signs of spring can be found earlier each year. All is very still around me. It is almost as it the frost comes and asks all to "stand still". A leaf hanging above me on an oak tree just moves very slightly in the soft breeze. The river and stream move, but otherwise everything just seems to be as still as it can. I hear a few tits nearby.

The sky brightens and clouds in south east have pale pink bases but it will be a while yet before this place in the shadow of the hills will see the rays of the sun. I saw otters here a few years ago but I don't feel I will see any today. The river water looks cold and uninviting. The surrounding fields are empty of sheep; I hear a buzzard up above me over Sned Wood; I hear a woodpecker drumming in the distance; pigeons fly past very so often, always from east to west - presumably leaving their night's roost. All the conifers on Mere Hill and Shobdon Hill Wood are outlined in frost and look very decorative. This is a beautiful place and I always look forward to returning to this part of the country. It isn't a stunningly dramatic place but it was a subtle attraction that I never tire of. Later I watch a heron fly slowly over the riverbank keeping low to the ground and then heading downstream just a few feet above the water. Eventually the sun rises above Mere Hill Wood and the landscape is bathed in the pale golden light. Colours awake and the cold seems to become less intense. I think a kingfisher flies past, not that I see it but I'm sure I recognise its call. There are several blue tits in an ash tree by the bridge.

Hills of Ice
I climb up the 'scenic' route onto the forestry track along the edge of Sned Wood. This involves a rather steep, nearly impossible, informal climb straight up the side of the hill through the trees. I disturb a woodcock which takes off through the trees - I see one later in the day too. This is one of the few hills I have never walked over before even though it is mostly forestry land. The heavy frost covers the ground and everywhere is covered with beautifully big ice crystals. My footsteps crunch through the dead leaves with a seemingly deafening sound amidst the silence. I don't like making a noise in nature, it always seems un-natural and inappropriate.

At the top of the hill I stand in the more open space between the oaks and look around. The sunshine pours through the trees. Suddenly I become aware of the ice that surrounds me, not just the crystals of frost that cover the ground, but actual ice. Against the sun on the larches I notice how every twig is covered with a thin layer of ice - sparkling brightly in the sun like long necklaces of diamonds hanging from every branch. Yesterday's snow must have partly melted and then refrozen overnight. Grasses too are covered with icy jewels and even a cobweb looks like it is threaded with diamonds. I walk on and come to a silver birch - its deep red-brown branches and twigs are totally encased in brittle tubes of ice. On one branch, a patch of lichen inside a rounded blob of ice looks just like a round glass paper weight. Around me I can begin to hear the gentle drip of water as the ice begins to melt on the trees. (Later on in the day I walk up onto Shobdon Hill Wood which is a bit more wild and exposed. The scenery here was very dramatic with huge great swathes of the natural landscape covered with ice. Everything from grasses to each pine needle of entire conifer plantations were covered with a deep layer of ice. It was just like the whole landscape had been dipped into a pool of molten glass to create a brittle glass encapsulated sculpture.

Up on this hill today it is all about water and light. There is a sense of beauty and awe at the interplay between these two elements. There is the way that the frost lies on the landscape - what it touches and what it doesn't. Shapes and forms that may normally go unnoticed become highlighted. The shapes of twigs, the broad flat expanses of the fields in the valley, the outlines of leaves, the way the sunlight passes through the tall trees, the brightness of the sun on the frost, the darkness of damp tree trunks and the dazzling effect of the ice on natural surfaces.

Four Oak Trees
The trees stand in grazing pasture on the edge of a small hill in a quiet valley, surrounded by wooded hillsides. Icicles hang from the larger branches and I can hear the dripping melt-water in the warming sunshine. A robin hops from branch to branch near me as I sit on the grass and look at these silent friends. Its presence seems unusual in this setting and it the bears the only colour red in the landscape. Silently they stand, there is no wind today. I'm used to seeing and hearing trees when a wind makes their presence more noticeable, here we are both meditating upon each other in a landscape that breathes silence. The robin watches me and a blue tit flits among higher branches looking for things to eat. These are superb trees, probably once part of an old hedge that has long since gone as they stand out in the open but only a short distance on from, and in line with, a small trackway I have just walked down. Apart from the chirping of birds, the dripping of water, buzzard and a small stream down in the valley bottom there is no sound. The lichens on the branches are bright green in the strong sunlight and new buds are just waiting for the spring. In isolation, trees are so much more stunning and their shape, form and presence is so much more tangible. I just sit and look, being aware of their composition and presence in this landscape. I give thanks to whoever has left them here over the years to grow. Fortunately this is steep sheep pasture and unlikely to be ploughed or cleared. These trees have given to me today a gift of deep presence in a fairly hidden valley.

Mindful Walking

Wapley Hill, Herefordshire

Slowly, each step is placed with conciousness and awareness of its place upon the earth. I'm in a place where time has no immediate pull on the mind and it doesn't matter if the journey takes five minutes or half an hour. The trees barely move so why should I move with determination and eagerness? The earth makes no noise beneath me so why should I tread heavily? I am a visitor in the woods so why not become like the wood? Shape and form, texture and colour, smell and touch become my companions as I notice my form and presence amongst the dampness, the soft silent mist and the other beings who inhabit this landscape of conifers and ancient man-made earthworks. With an attentive mind to the presence of everything around me I notice the drops of water hanging on the ends of conifer leaves, the damp cobwebs on old tree roots, the fungi on delicate branches and on the decaying  branches and waste wood than scatter the newly cleared hillside. I am aware of the depth of the space around me and how the trees and undergrowth fill that space. I marvel at the brightness of the autumnal colours that brighten the misty darkness. Like Qigong, this is a way of walking that asks the body to be slow, to be present, to be aware of every movement and and to take notice of the way it is made. I don't expect to see or sense anything amazing, but I take pleasure in just observing the small, the detail, the present.

I leave with a sense of depth and fullness.

Man-made Landscapes

Wapley Hill, Herefordshire

It was just before daybreak that I parked the car at the base of Wapley Hill. It was surprisingly warm and after I had set off on my walk I soon had to return my coat to the car as I was overheating. Yesterday had been a beautiful warm sunny afternoon with the bright yellow mahonia fowers in my mother's garden covered in bees and even a comma and red admiral butterflies. Today was shrouded in mist and although it brightened up later in the day, I didn't get any views during my limited time on the hill. An area of conifers has been cleared on the northern side of the hill and when I was up here a few weeks ago I saw views I had never seen before. Today I sat for quite a while at the edge of a new clearing and watched what I could see of the landscape around me. Some blue tits, a wren and a goldcrest kept me company at one stage.


To facilitate timber extraction on this very steep side of the hill a new track had been bulldozed along the side of the hill for a good half mile or so. The ground must drop away at least at a 45 degree angle or more in places so a reasonable amount of the limestone/shaley soil had to be moved to create a level track. I noted how the track ran along side the lowest ancient ramparts of the Iron Age Hillfort thus creating a new 'rampart' lower down the hill. I wondered at the manpower time and energy expenditure in creating both of these earthworks. The bulldozer would have created in minutes what would have probably taken months or years to construct by hand.

What I also pondered was this. The Forestry Commission are probably within their rights to construct such a track without any need to get planning approval or to consult local residents etc. The track will substantially change forever the ecology and microclimate of this part of the hill. Possibly for the better as it will create more edge habitats and and introduce light onto the ground layer, thus encouraging a greater diversity of plants along its length. Whether the track will increase public use and access to this part of the hill I'm not sure. But if I walked along it, then others are bound to also. So this is a highly significant change to the landscape that is irrepairable and permanent (like the hillfort too). Will anyone be complaining about it? I doubt it. Even though possibly thousands on tons of soil and rock have been moved in its construction.

Now, consider a proposal to build a large wind turbine on the same hill. A structure with a minute ground footprint in comparison, only a few tons of soil displacement and with probably hardly any measurable ecological impact. I wonder what the public reaction to that would be...?

Radnor Forest Willows

I have to stop. I am unable to go on. It seems as if this place has forced me to stand in its presence. I have cycled through a large area of conifer plantation in the Radnor Forest on the Welsh border and now I have emerged to a place where the trees uphill to the left of me have been felled and the hill drops steeply down though open fields to the right. Along this edge of the forest road is a row of windswept and almost leafless Goat Willows that stand in contrast to the monoculture around me. They seem an unusual find, and somehow out of place here. 

The cool wind is loud in their branches and I shelter in front of a pile of felled timber and sit and wait. Why was I called to stop here? Somehow my initial thoughts on arriving here were evocative of a cold and frosty winter's day. Is there something of a memory that is tied up here with childhood memories  and my father? Am I just recalling an unidentifiable moment from the long distant past?

I almost feel a heaviness - a pity for these these beautiful trees that have for so long been hidden from the true light of day by towering conifers and which now lie fully exposed to the elements on this east side of the hill. Perhaps it's the sound, the deep song of the branches that ebbs and flows so slowly - like the movements in my qigong. Nature may just be saying "stop, and just observe me". I'm on a long bike ride and haven't much time to stop and dwell in one place. Here I am given the opportunity to do so.

I do some meditation before I get too cold and just absorb into my senses this unexpected special place which others would just pass by. I give thanks to the place.

From Creator to being in The Created

In mid-April I took a short break to my usual haunts in Herefordshire. I left work one Wednesday evening and travelled up to Hopton Titterhill where I camped out in the car for a night. I then went on a long bike ride before going to stay with my mother and doing some gardening work for her. It is now over a week a later and I am only now writing up my notes and reflecting on my travels.
The light is disappearing beneath the grey skies. I have had an easy journey here and at around 8.30pm there is still just enough light to enable me to absorb some of the landscape and cook a light meal. Then I go for a walk.

I saw a woodcock 'roding'. It made a very distinctive "craw, craw, squeek" sound as it flew with rapid wing beats between the trees. I hadn't seen one display like this before and I had to look it up when I got home to check what I had observed.

There were a couple of deer on the edge of a field and only a slight breeze in the trees.

Walked out onto a dry flat cultivated field that was showing initial signs of spring barley growth. It probably hadn't rained since the seed was sown. Darkness is all round me and the mooing of cows in a valley farmyard echo around the hillsides overlooking Hopton Castle. In the stillness the loudness of the cows seems rather eerie as they must be quite a distance away. I hear a few sheep also. There are few lights in the landscape and shape of the hills merge into the evening haze/mist.

The field gives a deep sense of space and openness after the enclosure of the office where I work; the drive here, and the conifers that surround the car park.

At work I am the creator - a place where I form ideas and colours into shapes, patterns and images. It has been a bust few days where demands are made, deadlines created and the need for me to be a creator are expected. The Mac is my tool - taking my thoughts and creating tangible structure. Now I am sitting in my car surrounded by the tall conifers, the gathering darkness and a gentle hush in the trees. Silence, stillness and timelessness are my companions. Now I am in The Created - the creative playful springtime energy of nature. I am now an observer, treading quietly and absorbing the sense of space and creation - within The Created.

I am looking for inspiration, for a language, for a sense of belonging. Thoughts of 'dark' and uncertainty gather but I chase them away. The night can seem scary but yet my mind is slowly adapting to this new place. Tomorrow I will walk out into creation and receive, explore and learn.

Green Lane

Sunday 12 December and a short weekend visit to Herefordshire

I haven't walked up the road from Titley to Green Lane Farm before. The darkness and starlit sky is gradually giving way to the just perceptible and gentle brightening on the distant horizon. Beneath me the frost covers the cold ground and the road is a touch icy. I climb up the side of the valley between the tall hedgerows and turn west along the Mortimer Trail that follows the top of the hill towards Burnt House, a place I have been to many times before.

It has been a good year and a half or more since I have walked up here and the farming landscape has changed dramatically. A large new farm sits on the hilltop where once there was just pasture; ancient hedgerows have been cut back and replanted and now fields of frosted fodder beet (?) covered the hillside and were being grazed by at least 200+ cattle kept in check by long lengths of electric fences. Around the edges of many of the fields long rows of pale blue round wrapped silage bales in a pattern that seem to reflect the technical planting of conifers just on the other side of the valley. Rather incongruous to the natural landscape. But there is nothing 'natural' here as even the old hedges would have once been laid by hand and Green Lane itself the result of landowners gone by. The woodland was probably managed significantly in the past; the old farmstead at Burnt House must have been a significant dwelling and the quarry further up hillside a source of much stone and activity.

The peace and beauty of the hill here is incredible. The sun is now pouring golden light upon the cold landscape from a cloudless blue sky and yet the valley down below on the northern escarpment between Knill and Presteigne and beyond on is a sea of impenetrable mist. This is a welcome break from the very cold snowy, dark and freezing weather of a week or so ago. This is a time of brightness, refreshment, and re-energising.

I stand against a tree near the old barn and could easily fall into a melancholic flow of nostalgia about the house that must have stood here and the farmers who lived and worked in this isolated but beautiful location. Instead I just try and listen to the landcape - the squirrels rushing about from tree to tree; the robin that flits cautiously in the hedgerow nearby and the occasional flock of starlings (possibly) that can be heard 'brushing' through the air from field to field - perhaps attracted by the nearby cattle. Later, when I pass back by here I am sure I hear a flock of long-tailed tits not far away.

It was too cold to sit down and write on the spot and I was a little short of time to do so anyway. But the place gave me the inspiration to at least write something when I returned back home to Bedfordshire later in the day. I feel I am loosing the flow of writing and would like to return to discover its power, wisdom, creativity, sense of exploration and exercise of the mind.

Hopton Titterhill and Black Hill: Part 4

Saturday 6 March 2010
I walk into the valley. I climb down the very steep hillside through the discarded wood and tree stumps of the felled trees to the tiny stream that I can hear way below me. Its source can't be far away, the hilltop rises above me up a narrow and steep-sided valley. A gentle trickle of water, bubbling and gurgling over the shale. I put a hand into the water. it is cold. I cup my hand and lift some water to taste it. It feels soft and smooth with a string earthy taste. I don't swallow it.

It is sheltered down here aware from the cool breeze of the hilltop. The stream is a source of life and energy in the valley. Flowing, following its course, a habitat for the stream-side saxifrages and the damp loving loving mosses that encase the overhanging trees.

What is the central stream that flows through me and my life? What nourishes and sustains me? In this valley is a persistent yet delicate stream- so easily changed by the weather and other environmental or human factors. Yet its function is to carry water through the valley safely. I must take care of the stream in my life. And the sound is continuous, no ebb and flow like the wind. The stream is. It does what is has to do. It is strong and unstoppable. It has to be or else land would flood. It has a continuous physical dynamic to outwork: to flow downhill.

I now have to leave this place and do other things. This has been a a day for writing, for looking at the landscape around me and for framing the big changes that are occurring in my life.

Thank you for this day.

Hopton Titterhill and Black Hill: Part 3

Saturday 6 March 2010
Landscape. How I love that word. It is a word I use a lot in the context of my journeying and the environment that is laid out for me in my daily walk through life. I'm up on Black Hill now, just a couple of miles from Hopton Titterhill, and looking westwards. Before me is the wonderful hilly landscape of the Welsh borderland between Knighton and Clun. The sun has penetrated the hazy clouds in a few places, otherwise the light is subdued and shadowless. Today I am just going where I feel lead, no distinct plan of action as such. Now I am sitting by the roadside overlooking a revealed valley. Only since a year or so ago has this view been seen once again after many years of being obscured by a tall conifer plantation. The conifers have been felled and now the view has returned again and I could sit here for hours.

What does this view have to tell me about my journey? Revealing, or revelation. Something that was hidden for a long time but which can now be seen. It used to be there in one form or another - before the conifers were planted. Perhaps the view that I see of my life was also, too visible, once a time ago. A momentary glint in the eye of the Divine that set my life alive in the knowledge that it would, one day, be revealed. Now this phase in my life is opening up and I admire the view.

The sound of the wingbeat of a crow brushes across the hillside. A buzzard calls, far below me. I am on the edge of a view - at a vantage point. I am not in the view itself, that will come later.

The earth is still quite dormant and there are still tiny patches of snow in sheltered hedgerow edges. The valley has yet to wake up to the full energy of spring. Perhaps the biggest challenge I will face in my new job is that of dealing with different and more varied people once again. What can my view tell me about how I should relate to the new people I am about to meet?

Peace: hold your peace and know your own confidence and belonging.
Difference: everyone is different. Nature is diverse. It can be good, it can be cruel. Co-existance is a key to survival.
Sounds: just listen, and don't interfere with the balance of what is before you. Think before you upset the balance.
Creativity: is part of the natural energy of nature.
Light: and therefore energy, will come and go. Some days may be pale and shadowless, others will be bright and full of contrast.

Hopton Titterhill and Black Hill: Part 2

Saturday 6 March 2010
The early morning light reveals a cloudy sky but touches of salmon cumulous where the sun highlights their form. Beautiful, not human sound, just birdsong and the occasional bleating sheep. The peace of this place is awe-inspiring. The dry morning air is clear as I look out form my vantage point of a pile of fragrant newly sawn pine logs down over a valley and on towards Stow Hill. There is a hint in the clouds that reveals a blueness that might promise sunshine later in the day. The air has a gentle cool breeze that moves only the very most delicate of grasses and cobwebs.

From the darkness of last night I am now venturing into the light - with a slow walk up to the top of Hopton Titterhill. This one viewpoint captures my imagination and I watch as the morning light on the hills before me constantly changes the landscape.

I sit in my stillness, trying to focus my thoughts away from the events of the past weeks. Small patches of yellow-gold sunlight make fleeting visits to the hillside just below me - not to any other hill, but to my hill. They last for only a minute or so then disappear, but their light brings colour and warmth to the greyness of the winter landscape.

Hopton Titterhill and Black Hill: Part 1

Friday 5 March 2010

It has taken me nearly 5 hours to drive to Hopton Titterhill in South Shropshire. After busy Friday evening traffic, roadworks on the M1 and at Warwick, a stop at a service station and a generally steady, unrushed and hopefully petrol efficient drive I have finally made it. It is around half past midnight. A cloudy sky means that I can't see any stars but at least it means that the temperature will not get too near freezing tonight. I don't really want to sleep in the car when it is that cold.

A cool breeze gently waves through the tress on the hillside around me and the candle flame flickers wildly in its glass holder. At least it is dry and the wooden bench here feels welcoming. I've been looking forward to meeting it for several days and it is good to be back here again at night. The car park is well sheltered from the wind and I don't feel too cold.

Alone; with my drawing pad, pen and a candle. Just Being in this darkness that awaits the new dawn and my welcome to the landscape.

Today was my last day at my current work. Last week was an anxious time as I handed in my notice and, fortunately, this past week has passed by fairly quietly in the sense of 'if that is what he wants to do then so be it'. I can hardly believe it has happened. Now it is time to put the past three years to one side and begin a new path on my journey.

It feels strange to now be at this table. In the flickering candlelight I am surrounded by dense blackness and I can't make out anything of what is around me. The candle just lights me and my immediate surroundings. A long period of waiting and patience has passed by. I remember the kestrel I wrote about last year and how I distinctly felt it was giving me that word: patience. Now I am in the darkness of leaving. Just a candle flame to light me. Just the thought of the new light that will enter my life tomorrow. I have reached the edge - and now darkness. Almost death: the ultimate change. Here I am, dying to the old and awaiting the resurrection. I am in nature's womb - forming, changing, anticipating. The heartbeat of the candle burning to keep me alive and focused. The darkness around me reaches into the trees, into the sky and into the earth. I cannot see out of my womb, I can only hear the environment around me. I can feel it, through the firmness of the earth beneath my feet and the touch of the breeze upon my cheeks. I can smell the soil and the pine trees. Yet I can see nothing. Like my new job, I only have thoughts and ideas that play with the senses. I didn't bring my drum with me as it doesn't like the cold. Perhaps I should have done. An owl hoots in the woodland a distance away.

I look around, away from the candle light and it isn't ever really truly dark. The tress are just perceptively silhouetted against the grey sky. It is a touch windy and I can hear leaves rustling along the ground and occasionally the pages of my pad get lifted up. I must be careful not to get too cold. A new day awaits.

Being Still

'To create is always to learn, to begin over, to begin at zero. Part of the discipline of art as meditation is the discipline of struggling always from the beginning - "In the beginning," one might say.' Matthew Fox, Original Blessing, p198.

Somewhere in North Hertfordshire on a Sunday Morning...

This feels like the first time in months I have been able to just sit. To sit quietly. To sit without the feeling that I should be doing something else. To sit without being anxious about anything. To sit with only a very slight chance of being disturbed. Just occasionally I seek out a place like this. A place where time has no value and where I can place to one side all the things that demand my attention and just give myself permission to just 'be'. I am away for the demands of work, I know my family are safe and I have just finished a run of busy, but very creative and inspiring weekends. I am here, alone - apart from the presence of many non-humans who surround my temporary sacred place.

I have been in this place for about an hour now and I've decided to get out my sketchpad and write. It seems impossible and so idealistic to "go-slow" and to savour the more natural side to life amidst the demands and anxieties that abound in work, the family and life in general. I'm not going to explore these here as I am reluctant to dwell on the negative things that can occupy my thoughts at times. All I will say is that trying to live a positive and empowered life as encouraged by so many personal development advocates can be very hard work! I've stepped out of my comfort zone several times recently by volunteering to organise a grass maze and children's quiz at the Luton Hoo Walled Garden Apple and Pumpkin Gala; and running a craft activity in Hitchin's Market Square for the Triangle Community Garden. Both left me incredibly energized and I didn't enjoy coming back down to earth again! Some people seem to have so much energy and a seemingly insatiable appetite for doing stuff and achieving things. I know I am very hard on myself when I look at the skill-set of other people and I have to learn how to be constructive in such situations.

I am in my lonely place, a sacred place I'd call it, just for a few hours this morning. What will it teach me I wonder? I am not alone here. Although I am in a place where no people will pass me, I am conscious of the many non-humans that surround me and so I don't feel alone. A moth flutters on my umbrella; a spider crawls up my sketchpad; several other small beetles and invertebrates either crawl over my hand or over the white pages. There is a ladybird too. A few birds are tweeting in the trees and I am surrounded by trees. Trunks blackened by the pouring rain - stark against the bright golden yellows and browns of the vivid carpet of beech, oak and sycamore leaves. Even in this wetness beneath a heavy grey sky the woodland is awash with dense colours that the spirit of autumn brings. It is a time of death, of harvest, of fruitfulness; of shedding unwanted things, preparation for hard times and of giving back to the soil. Mosses look a deep healthy green and beneath the carpet of leaves I know there is a thriving community of fungi, invertebrates and microorganisms. I see some very tiny toadstools that have forced their way through the decaying organic matter up into the freedom of the space of the woodland floor.

It is warm for the first day of November, about twelve degrees centigrade according to the weather forecast yesterday. I'm feeling quite cosy, though I have a good few layers on and a wind-proof coat which I certainly need today. I'm on the lee side of the hill and up above me the trees are facing the fullness of the very strong wind and rain that is pouring in from the south-west. Where I am, blades of grass are just gently swaying, but later I am sure I will feel the full force of the wildness. I'm glad I have a large umbrella to shelter me from the wind and the rain, I know that I need to keep as warm and dry as possible if I am to stay here for any length of time. The wind and wet can soon cool the body, so I huddle up tight and keep warm.

I've just been re-reading Matthew Fox's Original Blessing. I wish it wasn't quite so heavy going, one day I'll get round to trying to write a more easily accessible version of it! It is basically a book about 'rediscovering' the blessing of Creation given to us by God.

As I look out at the woodland around me, the following things come to mind:

• Escapism is key to renewal


• There is colour even in death


• You are never alone in nature


• Man's survival should not be separate from nature


• Weather waits for no-one


• Growth is always present


• Beauty is always present


• Patience


• Do I prefer shelter or do i like the wind and the rain? How do I deal with comfort zones?


• What can I share with others?


• A tree has its own leaves and yet when it sheds them they mingle with those of trees around them (to ensure a mix of organic matter?)


• Journeys involve leaving, separation and time of returning home


• How can I change on my return home? How can I maintain that?


• How can I be a change


• How, ideally, should I deal with work and family?


• Being peaceful and strong is a gift (like a tree)


• Giving of that which has sustained you may be a sacrifice, but it may ensure your survival in the long run (leaves, money, love....?)


• How does nature cope with rain? Growth, waiting, indifference...?


• Nature is always creating, transforming and never static? How is that reflected in me? Was Jesus like that?

I watch the leaves tumbling down though the branches and give thanks for this place. It is time for me to leave and see what else the day has to offer me.

Camping and Drumming

Recently I spent a few days camping. I spent one night at Eastnor Deer Park campsite near Ledbury in Herefordshire and then three nights at the Resurgence Readers Camp held at Green and Away, a tented and 'green' conference centre near Worcester. With four days at my disposal I wanted to make sure that I used them wisely. The Resurgence camp was a great opportunity to meet a diverse group of people but, as I had found last year to be so emotionally challenging and inspiring, I decided not to attend any of the talks or activities this year. I talked lots, did quite a bit of washing up and enjoyed just sitting around chatting to people. It was great to spend time with people who shared many of my interests and ideas and I appreciated not feeling quite so isolated.

There were some things that were inspiring to me about my time way and I will just recount them here. I don't want this to be a diary as such so I'm just going to write what comes into my mind and not focus on times, places or people as such.

I had pitched my tent in Eastnor Deer Park on the south-western edge of the Malvern Hills and walked up to the monument on the hill above the campsite. During my tea I had been watched by two doe Roe Deer and five stags then appeared out of the woods to watch me as I left the tent and began to walk up the hill. It was about 9pm and the light was just beginning to fade. The rain laden clouds were giving way to a much clearer sky and there was quite a cool breeze. I took my drum with me and enjoyed a decent time drumming in the approaching darkness. With the air being cold and damp, my drum was distinctly sounding flat but it was wonderful to play it and listen to how it sounded with the breeze in the trees. This was the first night of my holiday and I felt a great release of freedom from the isolation and restriction I had felt at work. I had driven three hours to get to this place and now I was at home in the landscape, the wind and the rain. There was one moment of looking up when I was thinking about light and immediately seeing the only star in a patch of sky that was very moving.

I took my drum on a gloriously warm and sunny morning up onto Midsummer Hill on the southern end of the Malvern Hills. Walking up to the hilltop just after 6am was a wonderful experience and the views were superb - so clear under a cloudless sky. There was a strong breeze, but in the lee of the hilltop and the concrete seat, I enjoyed a great time of drumming. Weaving seemed to be the theme - weaving the sound of the drum through the landscape. I find that small chants can come naturally to me in places like this. I can't always remember them as they come and go with the flow of my drumming and whatever I am thinking or praying about. It is a very "in the moment" sort of experience.

The River Teme runs beside the Green and Away camp and I took my drum down the river bank one morning after breakfast. It was warmish, mostly sunny and no-one else was about. The river was significantly higher than last year and the water a muddy brown with silt from recent rains. The Indian Balsam was in full flower and long-tailed tits fluttered around seemingly unperturbed in the willow trees just beside me as I drummed. I then sat down and spent an hour or so drawing my experience, by which time other campers were out walking and enjoying the river too.

I spent an hour by myself in the yurt 'sitting room' drumming. This is almost one of my most favourite places in which to be. Quite, surrounded by soft cushions, warm in the summer sunshine and very welcoming.

I had a good walk up onto Croft Ambrey and then a few hours drawing in the walled garden at Croft Castle. Between the many rain showers there was lovely sunshine, but it was so intermittently wet that I didn't get as much drawing done as I would have liked.

Driving from Leominster with my mother to our old farm. It was a beautifully warm, clear and sunny evening and the countryside around Tenbury Wells and towards Hanley Child looked stunning.

I'm not used to talking so much and so when faced with so many interesting people who all share many of my different interests it was fun but quite tiring to practice quality communication. I did appreciate that some people sought me out from time to time as I felt I was always giving, always being the one to initiate conversation - and I was trying very hard to be pleasent, chatty, respectful and friendly to all whom I met.

Visting the Knapp and Papermill Nature Reserve. This has to now be one of my favourite places on the planet! I went there twice this year having fallen in love with it last year. The river, the old apple orchard, the woodland, the meadows.... sigh!

Finding time to do some drawing that wasn't rushed was wonderful. I did a couple of pictures at the Resurgence camp that I put up in the yurt and those that saw them and realised I had done them were quite appreciative of them. I felt I had contributed something in a quiet, sort of unseen way to the camp. If i go again next year I might draw upon this and do something a bit more.

Hoar Frost

Today: walked from Titley (Herefordshire) to Titley Station, along the railway line and up to Rushock, up onto Rushock Hill, along the Mortimer Trail to Burnt House and then down to Titley (8 miles or so).

I hadn't really allowed myself time to do this walk and take into account any stoppages so it was a bit of a push. It was quite a cold and foggy day and up on the top of Rushock Hill visibility was fairly poor, but fortunately I knew my way over the open land.

Up on the high ground of Rushock Hill and along the hill top to Burnt House it was wonderful to see the beauty that the freezing fog created on all the trees and plants that it touched. The hedgerows, woods, cobwebs, fences, and indeed anything above ground level were amazing - ice transformed them all into things of wonder. The patterns that the freezing fog made on anything it touched were stunning with shapes, forms and patterns appearing everywhere. Even my eyebrows got covered in lumps of ice!

Walking with Flowers

Here is picture of Harebells on Croft Ambrey. Whilst up in Herefordshire last week I took the opportunity to rebuild my long forgotten knowledge of wild flowers that my Father inspired me with as a teenager. On one day I went out for reasonably long walk (Titley to Wapley Hill and back) with the aim of drawing all the flowers and plants I didn't recognise. However, as it took me about an hour to cover the first mile with so much stopping, bending down and drawing something, only to repeat myself a few yards further on, I decided I needed a better approach. Ah, the joys of digital cameras! I was soon snapping away as well as doing the odd sketch. I was amazed at how much I found.

I did another walk, a couple of days later, about 10 miles or so, and again had my head focused on the ground for much of the time (Titley to Wapley Hill, Shobdon Hill Wood, Sned Wood, Croft Ambrey and ending at Croft Castle). The photo is taken from Croft Ambrey, looking back to the hills I had just walked over. In covering so much ground and passing through so many different habitats such as river banks, conifer plantations, open heath/grassland and arable fields, I began to be accutely aware of what plants prefered which habitats and what I would be likely to find where. There were often surprises as sometimes I would find something completely new in an unexpected place. It was actually quite hard work - always looking and trying to remember what I'd seen elsewhere, but very rewarding.

Although I have recently bought a new flower book it wasn't until I was back in Luton several days later that I really began the task of identifying what I saw. I had forgotten that, even with four main flower books it is not easy deciding what is what. In the field some things look so much as if they should be easily identifiable and yet the books don't quite have the perfect match. I have begun to look more clearly for the sorts of things that really identifies a plant. Umbellifers can be confusing unless you know what to look for, but it is the sort of self-heal/woundwort/calamint type of flowers that seem to get me. And even the flower books seem to illustrate the same species differently - one picture looks distinctly as if it is the wrong illustration compared to another two books! It took me hours to plough through all my drawings and photos and I only have a few plants left which I am uncertain about.

On ploughing through the flower books I was amazed at just how much folklore was attached to plants in times gone by. So many were medicinal and a good number are poisonous to varying degrees. Even some of the smallest plants seem to have had some medical property attributed to them. How on earth did people find out that a tea made from a bedstraw could clear a nosebleed? Why not just stick a wadge of grass up your nose? People must have been so much in tune with plants in the past, but then I suppose we nowadays would instinctively know that lemon squash tastes better than bleach even though both may look the same, come in the came sort of plastic bottle and come from the same supermarket.

One final thing. After my first long walk, and a day spent with my face in the middle of hedgerows and my nose to the ground, I came across a beautfully and immaculately trimmed hedgerow that had only just been cut by a tractor and flail mower. This represented everything I had been looking all day, now all mulched up in its prime. I know the farmers have to do it, but somehow it just showed how fragile nature's existence around us is and how much we shape it for our convenience and need.