Wandling Free?

Surrounding the wall, stubby ash and elephantine coils of Cherry Laurel gave a writhing border to the site, which for a moment felt to me like an abandoned sacred grove. The idea of Celtic Thin places came to mind, though here it seemed, any doorway to the eternal world had been blocked and forgotten.

The thoughtless hands that had tossed bottles and plastic bags, now tangled in rolling brambles, made this more of a Thick Place – dirty and broken, frayed at the edges, with nothing but shadows able to leak through the veil and stumble off ragged into the undergrowth towards an indifferent city beyond.

Un coup d’oeil: a lucky walk by a mill

Going down to the mill is something we do every time we come here. It’s a short distance downhill from Rue de la Roche, where my parents-in-law live, to the town’s second river. When the water is low, as it usually is in August, the visit also includes a walk across the stepping stones and…

Edging into Kent

I started to wonder how far I should go, without a map or much water, but a trail leading out of town and into the fields is always hard to resist. After all, as Richard Jeffries notes in in Nature Near London, one should “Never omit to explore a footpath, for never was there a footpath yet which did not pass something of interest.”

A futile list of sounds (with an explanation of sorts)

It doesn’t take much to make a familiar place unfamiliar. A change in the weather – rain, bright sunshine, or more dramatically, snowfall or fog can all do it. Smells too – who hasn’t found themselves aware of sniffing more consciously than normal when drains are blocked, or there’s a whiff of barbecue, bonfire or worse in the air?

And then of course there are a place’s distinctive sounds.

On the listening ridge

I’m back. It’s been a while. The woods behind my parents’ house on Tickenham Ridge haven’t changed hugely in the last few months – the seasons have cycled through and for now the hill is a shining riot of green in a dozen shades.

An hour earlier I was in these woods in company with my two boys, my sister, brother-in-law, two nephews and my Dad, but this time I am alone and things feel different.