Not Walking in the Woods

When I began this blog I planned to record, every day or so, the life that I saw around me in my patch of Earth. The main reason for doing this was that I didn't know how much longer I would be living here; since I was widowed I have been hanging on, mainly to prove that I could do it. After two years I reckon I have proved that I can do it but now I don't know that I want to do it any more.

But Puddock Acres is a special place: rather, it isn't special at all but to a townie like me it has brought me so close to nature that it has changed who I am and I pity anyone who hasn't had the chance to step out of those human-centric towns and cities for a while and discover for themselves that there is more to life than humanity. I am nervous about going back to the town and maybe forgetting all that I have learned, losing that connection to the rest of nature that put me in my place.

So I thought I'd record here what I saw, get my pictures and observations out there as a record of this place. I thought the discipline too might encourage me to actually create a body of work instead of just talk about it.

But I'm finding it more difficult than I thought. Every time I step out into the woodland or the field I end up feeling sad. At first it was memories of the slow promenades I would take with the Golfer when he was very ill - here's where he tripped; here's where we would sit and stare out across the Firth; here's where he cried. And I despaired of ever being able to enjoy the land again. Then gradually a kind of euphoria took its place - the challenge of managing it myself, the pride at the work I had done with no help offered or asked for from neighbours. Now that I've proved myself, I've run the place completely on my own for a year, it feels like a sad place again. Who am I proving myself to? Who notices?

I think I am at last emerging from my grief. I am impatient to be amongst people, though I have forgotten how to do it. Running this family-sized house and this bit of land with no-one to see it, no-one to enjoy it feels pointless and ever more isolating.

All this is by way of an excuse for not posting here in a while. I wish I could summon up the enthusiasm for it but I cannot face that walk round the field, the stream and the woodland just now - it's just too sad.

Slugs, Edible Houses and Being Miserable

I am low today. What is it that alters mood and makes one day good and another bad? The anniversary of the death of the Golfer is approaching so that's a partial explanation. Hearing the first mouse of the winter in the roof above my bedroom last night doesn't help either. After an untroubled summer round Puddock Acres, winter rots my confidence, with the promise of leaking roof, snow, dark, dark nights and rodents that I don't want to kill but I can't bear in the house either.

So I'm feeling a bit reflective, a bit sorry for myself and a bit plain miserable today. I walked through the wood to cheer myself up - it usually does, but today all I could think of was the times we walked it when he was ill. Damn the painful memories - what use are they?

Today is the first cold day we've had - summer gone now, butterflies gone, swallows gone. But there's still plenty to look at. The fungi are burgeoning - more varieties here than I'd ever seen in one place before and precious few I can put a name to. I think I'll make up my own names for them. There would be the Sponge, the Summer Russet, the Hedgehog, the Piecrust, the Orange-Peel (I think that one has already been named that officially).

And the slugs don't mind the cooler, damper days - they are out in force. I've grown very fond of the silly things and I wish I'd had my camera with me today as I found one right inside a hollowed out mushroom - right inside it - munching away at the walls. What must that be like in human terms? I crouched down and watched it contentedly browse. Can you imagine the bliss of standing inside a small room and it being edible? The only thing I could think of was the cottage in Hansel and Gretel. I've never seen a more contented slug - made me smile.

So, for all of you out there who are grieving or lonely or just having a bad day and bearing in mind this is supposed to be a nature blog, here is a sustaining and rather beautiful little poem by Gerry Cambridge from his book of poems and photographs of Scottish nature "Nothing but Heather!"

Dandelion Seeds


From somewhere -
from the Pennines, from Skye,
will arrive the puff of air
to make us fly.

In each barbed seed
(as in a nib of gold)
though they call us weed
is light untold -

to scatter like suns
in the Cosmos's breath,
and billow long tons
of blooms from death.

Now that's what I call a sustaining poem! And I am ready to face another day.