short stories
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Our Distant and Day Long Rambles
Beneath the flailed clippings of a hawthorn hedge is the home of Fidget and her little friend Piccolo. This is the place where Bob and his trusty spaniel Blue would frequent every morning, a little lane which winds like loose string baffling your sense of direction.
A Show of Summer Softness
In a small enclave of a wooded copse is a place so delightful and yet so often goes unnoticed and unsung. Here is a place to see wonders great and small; it is the little puzzles and magical ploys it presents to us, where adventures are to be experienced and secrets discovered where no eyes can follow
in the shadowed wilds
In the shadowed wilds of mature deciduous woodland where the trees are throttled by the ivy, the wood anemones now steal the show, cloaking the ground and blooming like a galaxy of stars. The random clumps of snow piercers (snowdrops) their white beauty now faded have provided a much needed food supply for the early bees.
a winter’s tale
As I walked along through the twilight with my breath condensing into clouds in the wintery air, the ground glistening beneath my feet and the trees coated with frost, the transparent icicles of winter hanging from their boughs and softly crackling in the breeze, my thoughts once again turned to my beloved Rocky.
a stroke of luck
The hurrying images of that day danced through my mind as a shiver of fear tingled through my body; I feel the awful brooding weight of that time acting on me like a chloroform pad.
the bigger picture
I will try to offer you a few glimpses into the wonders of our native woodland trees, in the hope that you become better informed of the importance of our woodland treasures.
falling leaves
Whatever the season, the marvels of nature are all around us. Leaves from our woodland trees tumble and fall to the woodland floor. Consumers such as slugs and snails break down this vegetable matter into much smaller pieces.
the nature of time
I have often wondered about the nature of time, we can’t see it or touch it, yet it’s there every moment of our lives. Time is the most precious thing we are given on earth.
galleries and umtitumps
In the early summer, when the hedgerows are white with May (the blossom of the hawthorn), the scent of which is heavy upon the breeze, and the birds singing lustily above, the spirit of the times is felt even underground by the mole—the blind miner whose senses are so keen it triggers him to start breeding in earnest.
the melodious warbling of the skylark
If you have ever stopped to listen to a Lark singing in a clear blue sky and have wondered how a tiny fluttering spec can climb so high on tender wings and yet sing more blissfully than any other, you may be sure that he is showing off before his lady and is using both the powers of his voice and a display of his flying to win her regard and accept his devotion.
hidden in the blind
Whilst roaming the local countryside day after day and across all seasons, I would observe and make notes on all I saw in the way of living things. Nothing escaped my attention. I never missed an opportunity to see something wonderful and have been ‘blown away’ by the wondrous things I have witnessed.
jumping jack
Our tallest annual commonly known as Malaysian Balsam was brought here from the Himalayan foothills in the 1800’s, although a non-native, its flowers are adorned by bees. I dearly love to listen to their pulsing sounds as they harvest the white pollen in their baskets. However, the weight of their harvest would sometimes impede their flight and they would succumb to the waiting mouths of the hungry toads beneath.
the ant: the mighty atom
Ants, friend or foe, love them or hate them. Did you know that there are over 40 species of ants? To most people they are just pests; they know nothing of their complex lives.
all things connected
In the lazy summer sun the thrushes consume many fruits of the wild cherry and soon begin to become intoxicated; they then turn, flip, tumble and fall allowing me to make close contact with them whilst becoming rather tame.
a little bit of heaven on earth
The wind and rain was raw and mean and would change but for a moment. It would touch your face as soft as a feather, and then all of a sudden the cold would hit you once again, for when nature’s birthing spring, she gets right down to it.
the wonderful woodland floor
Losing the greenbelt and the mature woodland goes far deeper than just the fields and the trees, it’s what they support, the things we don’t see, the things we can’t see or even consider or indeed understand their importance.
a bower of joy
Pondering through the little episodes of my life helps me to realise that many things exist in life that we don’t really see, hear or even understand.
the dunnock
Our beautiful hedge sparrow commonly known as the Dunnock has to sing blissfully and loud to attract a female. Many of our native birds which are sombrely clad have to sing loud and clear to be noticed.
little boy blue
On many of our adventures whether on pathless woods or where the waves break on a low sandy shore, Blue and I would settle a while. Blue is my trusty Blue Roan Cocker Spaniel. He would sit on his haunches with a morose appearance watching his master. A watchful sleepy eye would appear and analyse the footsteps, creaks and sounds around him. Blue stood slack but ready, his smooth narrow head flickered as he shifted his gaze, his growls grew more menacing, his eyes becoming fixed in their stare.
the presence of wonder
Studying lichens in a local cemetery a purely natural habitat represents a mutual life giving partnership between an algae and a fungus, each depending on and co-existing with each other.