Finding Beauty – A Year of Nature Outside Your Door.

Well they are here and I did say in my blog last week that I’d be jumping with joy and I am. The books have arrived back from the printers just in the nick of time for Christmas, but like my dog are for any and all times of the year! ‘Finding Beauty – A…

‘Finding Beauty’ the new book is almost ready. Here’s what’s been going on for me this year…

This was just going to be a blog about my soon to be released new book ‘Finding  Beauty – A Year of Nature Outside Your Door.’ I was going to be showing you pictures of the boxes of books, photos from inside it, telling you  where you could buy it, it was all going to…

Sacred Grove

‘The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep’ The promises I had today were to go on a ‘date’, a date with a secret, special place. A place I stumbled across a few years ago whilst writing my book ‘Finding Home -Journeys with the Hillforts of Shropshire’. The journey in…

Land of the East.

We drove directly east, as far as the land would allow,  until we reached a world of water and sea.  Along the way, groups of muntjac grazed on the verges.  And died too, in the inevitable roadkill.  Their carcasses dried and winnowed,  like empty sacks of disgarded cloths, blown along the central barrier.  Eventually we…

Spring Equinox – Ostara

Walking out into this beautifully bright, sunny morning, I’m suddenly thinking of the eighties film ‘Highlander’. The bit where Sean Connery’s character is explaining to Christopher Lambert’s highlander about the ‘quickening’, that surging pulse of energy and life force that makes him feel stronger, more alive and immortal. So today, standing on top of Windmill…

I see you…you see me.

This morning the sun was shining, making the sky the brightest of blues and I was keen to get up and out, much earlier than normal, into the world of light. Yesterday was the opposite, a grey, dark, drizzly, then torrential kind of day and even the dog wanted none of it. The warmth of…

Yew

Yew roots fan out like the folds of a skirt. Great octopus arms encircling the earth in coital embrace. In between the tangle of limbs, faces appear and dissolve again as I draw near to explore the hidden places within. Each tree growing its own signiture of anchoring curls. I’ve been visiting these yews for…

Finding Home – Journeys with the Hillforts of Shropshire………….. ‘The Birthing of a book.’

I’ve had a long love affair with hillforts. Most weekends as far back as I can remember, we would have a family walk and picnic, driving excitedly past the Hillsborough football ground, along the tree lined Rivelin Valley, past the brooding, dark shapes of Stanage Edge, along the Hope Valley and up through Castleton to…

Land of sky and water.

All my life I’ve been a mountain person. I was born in a city that, like Rome, was built on seven hills. Though it might not have been as glamouress, Sheffield formed me like steel, accustomed me to going uphill or downhill wherever I walked. The nearby Peak District forged me further, climbing on gritstone…

Rock

Crouching low against the enormity of the ancient trees, A miniature world of delicate perfection steals my gaze and brings me back to ground. A rock, gnarled, fissured and cracked into a myriad of textures, Sits quietly like an aged idol in a stone trough composed of molecules as old as the earth. It holds…

Wildling

Graze your knees scrambling up Oak, Beech and Hazel. Scratch your shins running through moors of Gorse, Winberry and Heather. Prick your fingers on blackberries, haws, sloes and rosehips. Slip and slide through muddied fields and ancient trackways. Get wet socks from jumping on stepping stones just too far apart. Stray off the path in…

Deep in the Woods

There’s a world out there waiting. It’s always been there. Just out of reach but in plain sight. A hidden world of quiet rustling, fleeting images, the shimmer of a leaf brushed, the scrunch of delicate footfall in the undergrowth, the glance of a wings flight path and the caught hairs on a bramble. This…