An archive of once daily(ish) posts about my observations from the natural world. An open draft of words I shared on Mastodon (that account is now deleted. My current account is here.) on the eve of my body collapsing with the weight of long covid.
July 17, 2024
A sack of rubble settles in the bed of the river Frome. Gravel spill and drift om the froth of the current. The fish have yet to return.
July 16, 2024
In the gap between houses, just high enough to see, the moon is drawn in chalk. Incomplete, misshapen and plump, I can hide it with just my thumb.
Swifts fly and I think of swallows. The blackbird bids us goodnight with one last ballad.
The moon joins the planes above the copper haze of city night. It shines, aglow from a light unseen, a halo around my thumb.
July 15, 2024
Bare branches, bare and haggard as a witch's hair, have been hacked away. The twig of green leaves has been discarded. Not even a stump remains when once there was tree, where once there was oak.
July 14, 2024
Green barley dances in the breeze, the hair sticky against my sweaty palm. Squirrels bound out of the field at my approach and vanish in the darkness of the trees.
July 13, 2024
The gravel crinkles under the disturbance of my bicycle wheels. A dead twig snaps loudly in the woods. A dog barks. I disappear into the labyrinth of streets.
July 12, 2024
I am tired and hold the thuja sprig in my hand. I rub and roll the supple waxy life between my fingers. A distant smell of mint and honey brings tears to my eyes.
July 11, 2024
The stories of an evening walk.
The earth is warm and damp near the brooks, the scent mineral and rich. The ducks have deserted the ponds to visit who knows where.
The fox sits with me until the barking hound rushes past my legs to the empty spot where the fox once breathed.
The swifts are still here, high above the roofs, their shrill songs the last I hear.
July 10, 2024
In the thick exhausted air of a warm summer's day, a low murmur of voices ripples to my window. My ears twitch at the half remembered tune. A lullaby, a song, a story maybe? The rise and fall crescendos and I recognise, at last, the mumbles of an anthem I have never learned.
July 9, 2024
The magpie sits and watches me, almost. I slink off the sofa, grab the camera. The movements are sharp in the haze of my body. the magpie flies, sneaks between the red brick and the turquoise cypress.
July 8, 2024
'I will go slower if you get closer', the grey Peugeot declares; white sticker brushed with dust particles. The large hairy black dog shoves his head out of the open window, ears pointed to the world, pink tongue drooping. Their bushy tail wags inside, rubs the face of a demure biscuit coloured labrador.
July 7, 2024
Sheets and shirts swell in the breeze. The sky is streaked with amber lines on the horizon. The deep inky blue above attempts to turn black in the bath of yellow lights dotted around the city.
July 6, 2024
The murky water of the Avon is still, a muddy surface that bears the deep green of clean cut lily pads.
The train hurtles by. The river is soon replaced by the dark asphalt pool that bears the heavy load of I.J. McGill lorries and two arguing pigeons.
July 5, 2024
The apple tree bears fruits. One apple at the very top offers a crimson cheek to the house. The opposite side remains stubbornly green.
July 4, 2024
I remember the winter wind. It smashed and rammed the houses of brick and glass. The summer wind now howls and weeps through the gardens of flowers and leaves.
July 3, 2024
It rains. On and off. All day.
Often it is a murmur on the study window. Now and again it is a sudden cascade that makes me jump.
By sunset, the clouds have spread into islands. The horizon is dyed the colour of apricot skin and early peaches. The red bricks of suburbia have tipped into deep burgundy.
July 2, 2024
On the rooftops and in the gutters, jackdaws and sparrows have deserted their post. A blackbird flies into thick roadside bushes.
The air stirs. The leaves tremble. My right leg swells and deadens.
In a field of hay rolled into bales, a council of crows gathers. Soon they will swirl.
July 1, 2024
Locked in metal and glass, the heat pressed on my body, renders me absent and forgetful.
June 30, 2024
Bubbles quiver over our heads. Children drop the orange plastic ball in a rush to catch the shimmer of soap in water.
June 29, 2024
The willow grows, timid and pale, between the exuberant and bold hazel and forsythia.
June 28, 2024
In the parking lot, a woman clad in black trudges through the viscous air of oil and spices by Burger King. Her skin glistens with sweat on her way to the gym. The gull watches from the wooden fence by the bins. No food to be gained in the empty hours of Friday night.
June 27, 2024
The field of barley ripens. Green and yellow merge, dotted lines of codes ripped by trampled trails of deer.
June 26, 2024
My head swivels at the glimpse of a large wingspan and fanned out tail. Eyes to the sky, I seek the dark shape of bird through the undulating foliage of oaks. My bicycle wobbles and strays into overgrown bushes of hazels and nettles.
June 25, 2024
Perched on disused antennas, jackdaws watch over decommissioned chimneys. Under the heaves of baked tiled roofs, sparrows sit in the dusty gutters and sing urgently into the thick air.
June 24, 2024
Eyes closed, the vole (or is it a mouse? Maybe even a rat?), as small as a fingertip, tumbles and rolls on the parched earth of the cycle path. Four more stumble an wobble at the edge of the grassy verge. I crouch to the ground and breathe to the rise and fall of their chests.
June 23, 2024
In the last of the light, at the birth of summer, bird songs dwindle as traffic sluggishly carries on.
June 22, 2024
Inside the barn or wood and chalk, we dance with strangers. Our feet collide out of tune, our sweaty hands clasp and hold. Bodies swirl and twirl and whirl, and we laugh, clear as foaming eddies.
Outside the garden fades into dusk save for the pink roses still hot and aflame from the blaze of the sun. It is easy to forget the motorway and remember the long ago summer days of hay, of heat, of haze, of endless sweet tarts and the drip of cool Schweppes glass bottles on windowsills
June 21, 2024
Shuttered in the shadows of the study, I am immersed in the fluid memories from the north - words stick to paper, colours slosh on pixels.
June 20, 2024
Atop the roof, the jackdaw and the dove meet. The blackbird sings the ballad of their untold romance.
June 19, 2024
Hay bales in the field, the deer are long gone, a retreat to scattered copse of oaks and birches. I watch the red tractor roam. Dust flies around us. I remember the long ago itchy days of summer.
June 18, 2024
The horse in the field neighs, pounds the earth, blindfold around their head. In the pub garden, we drink and laugh, a last goodbye to a friend.
Apr 25, 2024
A bumblebee purrs around my helmet as I race to follow the pirouetting swallow, their flight dizzyingly fast. My lungs burn in the cold air, my laugh jagged and bright.
Apr 24, 2024
Buttery maple leaves, tinged baby pink on their fingers, sway in the wind, anaemic and cold. My breath escapes in a visible puff. Dandelion seeds fly by.
Apr 23, 2024
The sun, warm between cold breezes, falls on my cheeks. A horse neighs at the approach of a large roundabout. Three gulls fly overhead. Their lazy dawdling call trails long in my ears.
Apr 22, 2024
Rain over the world saturates colours, stills the frenzy of birds. In the car, I watch cow parsley shine like roadside constellations. The old leafless oak stands still, sentinel over the rush of traffic; drivers unaware of the weight of the greying branches.
Apr 21, 2024
Back in the shelter of the house, I watch the garden and feel the dust of soil and dry cut grass on my palms. I consider a stretch of my legs but dare not move. A starling has landed in the lawn. They ruffle the uncollected stems of green and seek the food that wriggles beneath. I scan the sky for the others, the starlings that should be there but are not. When I look down, the bird is gone.
Apr 20, 2024
Our bodies fluid, the water sloshes around us. The eddies of disturbance, slow and sloppy, resonate in the air in a light tinkle of shell wind chimes. On the grass, Henry the heron is oblivious to our frolics. Leg raised, beak angled to the lake, they await the perfect moment to pounce on the fish.
Apr 19, 2024
Adrift above the memories held in the shifting water of the Avon, a goose flies alone. Their feathers gleam under the unexpected sun; a black shape, a shadow, a puppet glimpsed through slitted eyes.
Apr 18, 2024
In the shadowed grass, frost persists, holds the budding life still. On the roof, a goldfinch takes flight.
Apr 17, 2024
Tittering in the slanted wheelbarrow, the concrete tower of bees remain dormant. The armoured beekeeper's muscles tense as they pull the handle of the wheelbarrow, angle it upwards to the nascent flowers of the allotment.
Apr 16, 2024
Dusk fizzes with the last songbirds of the day. A bat loops in aerial acrobatics to steal insects from the path. A robin alight a foot from me, uncertain, flies away. An arrow of crows crosses the copper sky. I stop by the gurgling brook and hold my breath. The light dies. Silence settles in. A fox trots on by, oblivious to the seismic shift into quiet.
Apr 15, 2024
A grey blob atop the crown of a thuja, the pigeon sways in the wind, wobbles, tightens their claws as their wings remain shut to the air.
Apr 14, 2024
The wind drifts, slow and exhausted, pushes the river against the corrugated walls that keep it contained from gardens and houses. The water licks the metal, gurgles as it falls back on itself
Apr 13, 2024
I step out of the garden door and see the gull. They hang in the air, wings extended and still, white as the sheets on the carousel of clothes in the neighbours garden. We lock eyes. They flap their wings, disappear into the sky, grey and small.
Apr 12, 2024
A red spot dressed in black polka dots and a translucent grey tail of a dinner jacket, a ladybird wanders the edges of the thick white door.
Apr 11, 2024
Cones of pink on the apple tree have burst into clumps of white undulating petals - a garland trail on the supple tendrils of wood and leaves.
Apr 10, 2024
A single swallow rests on the wire by the pub. White belly and long thin tailcoat feathers dangling in the breeze, they look north. I tip my helmet off in greeting, hope for them to stay but since the destruction of their mud nest under the eaves of the pub, swallows no longer linger in this patch of sky.
Apr 9, 2024
At the edge of the clump of trees the pitchfork is rooted to earth, the chipped baby blue paint of the handle an echo of the sky. Two horses graze at the far end of the field under the shadows of the newly leafed trees. The church of St James the Lesser tower over them in gilded light.
Apr 8, 2024
Bats whirl in the nighttime, greying bushes steal their shadows from sight. White blossoms pop in the dark, attract my eyes, tickle my nose with a hint of dew and roasted buckwheat. The fox sneaks across the cricket pitch, disappears under the already thick bramble bush.
Apr 7, 2024
The neighbours plastic crate judders against the wooden fence. The loose stone slabs rattle on the pebbles where the rabbit enclosure used to be. The wind whistles and scurries in the dangling cords of the clothes horse. I plunge my head underwater, mute and distort the world.
Apr 6, 2024
Caught by the wind, a crow glides between brick houses, spins and flips in aerial delight, rises and falls in the gusts that chill my skin.
Apr 5, 2024
A robin, alone in the leafing whitebeam by the white BMW, trills a bright clear song of spring under the overcast sky.
Apr 4, 2024
A gentle mist on the dusty tarmac, petrichor rises. The sweet melancholic warmth of earth lingers in my nostrils in the space between drizzle and downpour.
Apr 3, 2024
The air is thick with suspended drops of rain. They hang, for a moment. Fall, gravity bound, on the bicycle shed, on the garden, on my cheeks; paints us all fluid.
Apr 2, 2024
The shadows of the tree stretch long in the field opposite. The shed is dull and matte in the flat light of this drizzly morning. A cloud escapes on my breath as I stop, caught, in the gaze of the deer.
Apr 1, 2024
In the lull between rain showers and hail, a blue tit flies in, a straight line to the cornus kousa. They rest for a moment, survey the grass through the curtain of nascent buds. I watch them from behind glass, ponder if they see me too, recognise me. Maybe.
March 31, 2024
Early leaves shiver on the infant trees. The grass bends to the east, to the west. In the flaked flower pot, the water trembles.
March 30, 2024
Frayed tulips dangle open and loose. Undone by the wind, their stem sways to the rhythm of the storm.
March 29, 2024
A pigeon stops, on the fence, on their way somewhere. I watch them sit, their claws almost pierce the wood. For a minute or two, probably less, we look at each other before they take flight.
March 28, 2024
The day is quiet and blue as I wake. The day is filled with ice and wind as I work. The day is still and damp as I sleep.
March 27, 2024
A flash of gold. A sparkle of red. A goldfinch crosses the road to Iron Acton under heavy clouds. I shout out a greeting of joy to the light, to the flight.
March 26, 2024
The upturned bells of tulips adorn the garden border. The fluffy white buds of the whitebeam, curled into balls, peak upwards to the sun. The apple trees have grown leaves. The wildflowers pepper the garden with corn blue constellations.
March 25, 2024
The air is thick in Paris. Flowers adorn the busy brasserie terrace filled with locals and tourists alike as the police circles the Gare du Nord.
The air is cool in London. Dashes of light paint the Grand Union Canal into an impressionist canvas.
March 24, 2024
Stones of ice tumble on the grey slabs of the terrace, break, explode, splatter into rain.
March 23, 2024
I hear the rain fall on the tin roof of the garage. Inside of the house they laugh. I call out to the youngest ones and wonder if they too will marvel at the bight drops on the apple blossoms.
March 22, 2024
The rings of the glasshouse lean towards the earth. The fuzzy herbal glow of young tomato buds drifts in my memories. The parakeets sing to the decaying leaves of the magnolia tree. The wind splutters the canopy, the leaves fall. I no longer cry.
March 21, 2024
In the warmth of the post lunch slump, cigarette smoke clouds the terrace of a cafe as a black puppy barks greetings of joy. A woman buys rounds of beer but does not drink hers. The early flowers caress my nostrils with bittersweet green.
March 20, 2024
Turquoise sea of Carribean posters, I want to dive in from atop the chalk cliffs and swim in the lull of the waves, find relief from the unexpected heat.
March 19, 2024
A creamy butterfly swoops over our heads, fluid and breezy as the lacework of sea view balconies. A learner boat glides in a waltzing arc over the glassy water of the marina.
March 18, 2024
Pastel boats on the horizon float atop a glittering sea dashed apricot and raspberry. On the pebbled beach, waves roll and fizzle at the feet of students with cans of beers and crinkly pringles.
March 17, 2024
Fog circles the teal coloured sea. The chimneys spew a milky veil of smoke over the deck. A man huddles in the gap below the stairs, lights a cigarette, the flame lost to the wind.
March 16, 2024
Swelled by the last of winter's rain, the river Avon drags their way across the plains, slithers by the rusted railway track.
March 15, 2024
Copper light shines at the edge of the lake. Thick charcoal clouds press on it, threaten rain. A rainbow surges over the water. We flock to the shore like moths to a flame.
March 14, 2024
Between the distant trees and the thinning clouds a murder of crow rises, swells, and swirls. Their cries echo illuminated by the crescent moon. Behind me, a man, locked indoors, bites into the hard flesh of an apple.
March 13, 2024
Door wide open, I glance at the moon, a thin crescent growing. Below, where I stand in the grass, the air is mild and fresh. The heavy rains of yesterday have washed away the last of winter. It is not yet the time of equilux but I know, I know, something has changed.
March 12, 2024
It rains. Day and night. It rains. The fields bleed mud and clay, brown and red, over the immutable dark surface of tarmac. Pools of water, almost forgotten, rise anew to shift the paths into rivers. The horses huddle by the shed. The crows shelter under the church roof. The gulls and I, in the sky and on the ground, move through this liquid world.
March 11, 2024
Huddled under the bush between the cereal factory and the pavement, the yellow eye of blackbird tracks my movements; a moment of silence.
March 10, 2024
The woodpecker drums a triangle of oaks. A Holford pine, born on this soil, taps a lazy rain rhythm on my cap. A child dances on the reverberating plastic construction tiles.
March 9, 2024
Light descends. The sky melts into dark. The blackbird sings the last song of the day. Stars alight.
March 8, 2024
Pushed by the wind, the water rolls towards the shore. I bob in and out of the waves, forget to breathe. On the steps, I close my eyes and let the lake rock me back to calm.
March 7, 2024
Puffs of white on the magnolia, the flowers are near bursting; baubles of light in the dim world of dusk.
March 6, 2024
The fog spreads and thins, sputters the sounds of early morning commuters. In the apple tree, the high pitch rise and fall of a robin's song softens the cars.
March 5, 2024
In the garden, a pop of red, a pop of purple. I do not yet know the names of those flowers. I do know the name of the pastel suns that creep up in the grass. Prima rosa.
March 4, 2024
A haze of clouds. A translucent light. In the water, my body pulses with cold.
March 3, 2024
On the magnolia, oblong bundles of white prepare to open. One flower stretches its petal into the night. My nose breathe in the syrupy nectar.
March 2, 2024
Beyond the curtains, the world has swelled into white. The blackbird sings his flowing aria by the flowering forsythia as cotton wool snow still falls.
March 1, 2024
Hail falls. The garden settles into silence save for the ricochet of ice.
Feb 28, 2024
The buzzard hops to a fence post. A car rustles past me. I twist my body for a better view of the bird through a web of branches. Another car jostles me closer to the mud. The buzzard's eyes over their back watch and decide I am not a threat. They flow to the ground, peck at the mud.
Feb 27, 2024
The grass crackles, almost, from the frost. My cheeks remember the dark winter days. Alone by the roadside, one tree blooms white.
Feb 26, 2024
In the distance, dots of white glide between the still bare trunks of trees. Above, a low plane flashes red and swallows the world.
Feb 25, 2024
The lake dances today, a puppet to the wind. Rain washes the windows, the contour of imaginary lands.
Feb 24, 2024
The sun casts ripples of light on the lake. Our breath escape in miniature clouds as our bodies delight in the cold.
Feb 23, 2024
My ears prickle at the crackle in the air, strain to make sense of the electrical discharge. I turn to the open window to witness a flurry of hail morph into a cascade of ice.
Feb 22, 2024
The near full moon floats between the wispy remnants of the snapdragon. In the clear sky, Orion's belt illuminates the dark above the pattern of streetlights.
Feb 21, 2024
Two blue tits zoom out of a bush and arc back in. The wind thrusts my bicycle into the hazel. The horse lies in the silt, eyes closed.
Feb 20, 2024
The phosphorescent moon, smudged by clouds, cast a light on the deer and me.
Feb 19, 2024
The deep maroon of bricks frame the neon pink of the sky. The far away blotches of red from the construction cranes is imperceptible.
Feb 18, 2024
Farm land to scrub land, the earth was dug out to welcome the geometry of suburbia. Chaffinches, robins, and blackbirds made a home away from crops. Nightingales died under the assault of too many paws and wellies. A palm tree and a eucalyptus lost their way, settled at the edge of wooden fences.
Feb 17, 2024
Wispy clouds drift, meet, and settle. The sky pales and thickens. Rivulets of rain fizzle on the window pane. The colours of the world melt.
Feb 16, 2024
Water rises from beneath my shoes in a squelch of mud and supple grass. The blue tit ricochets along the garden fence from cypress to cornus kousa.
Feb 15, 2024
Puffs of cotton candy clustered in a clump of three, the trees call the attention of jaded drivers.
Feb 14, 2024
Bats flutter and quiver at the edge of my vision. Water flitters and glistens under my wheels.
Feb 13, 2024
The first daffodils have opened, stalks into flowers over the week-end. I stop to gawk at the impossible miracle of colour; the promise of spring.
Feb 12, 2024
Legs robed in mist, the deer raise their heads to consider me. Tentative, one flees. Then another. And another. One remains. They graze the open pasture encased by houses and hazels, unperturbed. To the east, the sun rises bright as a vitamin C, and illuminates the bellies of gulls and pigeons in soft apricot.
Feb 11, 2024
I dream of the sea. It is blue, in the photograph. It is brown, in my memory. Long ago I drifted on a nearby beach with a thick coat and a young dog.
Feb 10, 2024
Daisies speckle the grass by the edge of the wood; scattered leaves woven in the mud
Feb 9, 2024
The squirrel body floats in the gap between the fence and the bird feeder. Their grey fur sways, stretches and thins as the wind pulls at the flimsy metal of the feeder. Still, the squirrel is determined and takes three stolen bites before hopping atop the fence to survey the next garden.
Feb 8, 2024
Addled. Frazzled. Jagged and raw, I am carried by this car. Lights unfold like morse code behind the sparkle of rain.