Noticing Nature

Every time we go out west something happens. This time, we bump down the track to the hut in darkness. Open doors and the air is fresh, cold and dizzy with stars. After we’ve eaten its coats on and down to the beach by starlight. We just follow the stream, and tumble down towards the […]

It had been a struggle to get myself out of the house and, as I arrived, the flat grey sky was already darkening. There was only one car in the car park. I stopped my bike on the gravel and looked up at the huge dark trees, their branches dead still. Thrushes and robins volleyed […]

I stood looking down on Bristol bathed in winter sunshine. Music swirled from my earphones and around my head. A few couples stood on the same small hill, taking in the view. I was conscious of being in their way and of being alone. I knew I wouldn’t stay long up there. The huge and […]

She was up for the walk, despite the rain and the failing light. I watched her finish a tub of pasta through the steamed up windscreen, then bounce out the door- ‘Ready!’. She joined me at the gate where we inspected the map board, quickly deciding on the route we hadn’t taken last time. We […]

Coaxed from the air by the cold outside, mist clings to the single glaze window. In places, the moisture swarms into droplets that gather in stubborn colonies around the smooth deltas of travelling water. I never see them fall, each inevitable bead, but the kitchen window sill stays damp. When I clear up the water, […]

A robin watches me dig all day, as if I were a wild boar. He perches on a shady fence post as I root in each rectangular hole, inspecting the results of my grunting labour with a staccato glance. When he likes what he sees, he arrives on the soil heap, collects a fat grub […]

Back in Talaton. I’m in the bluebell woods, a hundred year old copse sandwiched between fields on the outskirts of the village. The landowner locked the gate ten years ago, but you only need to check both ways on the road and jump over. Once you’re in, the wood is quiet. The lack of public […]

I moved to Bristol 2 months ago. I have been working for Deliveroo, riding orders around the city on my bike. When I am delivering, I live in the future, cutting corners and running lights to shave down time and pull in a bit more money. I am always getting somewhere else, and the present […]

Winter has set in and the temperature has barely crept above freezing all week. Today, a thin mist hung low over Bristol, weighed down by cold. I cycled out towards Leigh Woods, my hands welded to the handlebars by the icy wind. Inside a cloud, the suspension bridge seemed like a path to another realm; […]

I am in a waterlogged field beside the river Deben. To escape the mud, I am standing on the collapsed trunk of an ancient willow. The tree has cleaved into three under its own weight, and the two splinter trunks now sprawl out horizontally over the mud. These rotting limbs sprout with as much vigour […]