The Season's Last Weekend

Gateway to the fields from Wapley Hill, November 29th, 2008

My last entry, I think. It has been cold and gloomy for the last few days and there is a feeling in the air that it is no longer autumn but not quite winter. Heavy coats and jackets have become normal gear. The last of the colour has drained from the landscape; the leaves have been stripped from the trees and those that are left are dulled and dry. And a few days now of cold; it has been very foggy for a day or two and today the temperature hasn't risen above minus three. On Wapley Hill this afternoon it was a few degrees colder and the firs were plastered with a heavy frost, as if the water had frozen to the branches. We had the Hill to ourselves apart from a girl on a horse and a jogger; but if it was minus five then perhaps that's not surprising.

This Journal is part of a series of online seasonal journals that began in the spring of 2008. From December 1st I will write a winter journal, and then a summer one next year, so that by the end of August 2009 I will have a full year's meditations on walks and weather and birds and trees. Every one hopefully is a little different. The handwritten precursors were more notebookish; I might try and follow this with the Winter Journal. Thanks for reading this Autumn Journal and I hope you will read the Winter one as well. http://awinterjournal.blogspot.com/

David Lewis

Nightwalking

Seed head, Wapley Hill, 7.30pm, 24th November 2008

I promised myself a night walk; when the clocks went back and the patterns of light and darkness changed I remembered how much I used to enjoy walking alone at night; Bedford Park in Southport, a cold dark flat space ringed by lights, or the long walks along the canals outside Runcorn with old friends. I chose Wapley Hill and decided to walk tonight. The road up the hill was deserted and very dark; the car park was empty and the Hill was in total darkness. Without the car's lights the stars appeared, the tall larches silhouetted against them. The sky looked pale grey/blue, the stars were so thickly clustered; there seemed to be no space between the stars, just more stars fading to beyond sight. I tried to adjust my eyes to the faint light and the stone road up the Hill gradually appeared. I was surprised at the amount of orange street light around the Hill; all the way between Shobdon and the Arrow valley seemed to be lit, like looking out onto a small town. I couldn't work out where all the lights were.

A cold night after a wet day, and the ground was heavy underfoot. The sky clouded over and the starlight was hidden, but in any case it was too dark to go too far into the trees. The sharp spikey pine silhouettes were clear against the sky but the deciduous trees disappeared. (In the Mortimer Forest this morning I was reminded that the thin branches of birch trees look like purpleish smoke.) The only sound was the wind in the trees. 'Trees are how we see and hear the wind,' said Roger Deakin, a quote I have been carrying around for days.

I managed to take some pictures but it was too dark for proper meditative nightwalking. I headed back to the car and took some pictures of seedheads. I had expected to be frightened in the woods at night but it was an empty, sighing space, silent apart from the wind and once a small animal, perhaps a rabbit. And the rattle of leaves out of the corner of my eye; a strange thought that the leaves fall at night as well as during the day. The car was spattered with golden larch needles on the way home.

Silver

A turn on the step from the garage; and looking westwards the whole sky was silver, a beaten metallic, soft, almost fragile.  The bare branches were motionless against the pale sky, a black feathering as thick as the stars.  

I suddenly realised late this afternoon that the season is winding down, or rather accelerating towards the winter.  Bitterly cold this afternoon, a keen wind from the north that has brought snow to many places apparently.  Here it has been wet and cold all day.  There was a sharp edge to the wind and the temperature in the courtyard didn't rise above about 5c all day.  Walking the dog down the toll road at dusk the sky was clearing; it could be cold here tonight.  

Apart From The Trees

A cold clear night, a whole skyful of stars and the Milky Way very clear overhead.  Dark at 5pm and only just above freezing at 8pm.  

Headlights from Presteigne visible a mile and more down the valley, thanks to the hedges being trimmed.  Long tunnels of moving light.  Ghost trees.  

We have seen a lot of nuthatches recently, probably the family that were reared in the old apple trees in the summer.  A young one watched me unpack a box of books from the garage a few saturdays ago.  They come to the bird table next door and we watch them in the ivy on the beech tree.  A short, loping flight.  

And unexpectedly we went to the river Lugg at Presteigne after heavy rains.  Usually the river is swollen and the colour of angry, milky coffee.  But this time the river was clear and we could see large maple leaves turning slowly in the stream, racing under the bridge and away, a slow, gentle movement in the ferocious power of the water.  

Wapley Hill Stories

Beech avenue, Wapley Hill, November 20th, 2008

The beech leaves had drowned the path and turned the whole width into a beech-leaf-field; only the surrounding conifers stopped the leaves drifting further. The path itself was marked by a double avenue, in some places a triple avenue, of old beech trees which were clearer, the architecture of planting was clearer, now that the leaves had fallen. The design became clearer even as the footpath between the trees disappeared... I am fascinated by these trees and their planting.

Forest Murmurs, November 2008

Deeper in the forest the trees are Forestry Commission conifers, planted as a commercial crop about 30 years ago. They too have a dark Teutonic beauty, a fairy-tale menace, a suggestion of wildwood. Under the canopy the trees have no branches, just wispy stems. But these collect cobwebs, mist, rainwater, and have a silver-gilt sheen that is very beautiful.

A different setting and a different second of light

Wapley Hill Images

Some snapshot images taken recently. Wapley Hill is our nearest place to go for a walk; we are on a busy B-road and the old toll road has grown over again, so that leaves only the Moor itself for a walk. This is boggy and not very safe for children. We have found it interesting how restricted our options are when it comes to walks; we definitely had more options in the city.

Small grove of silver birch, Wapley Hill, 20th November

Larch plantation on Wapley Hill - my local patch! Most of these have shed their needles now and the ground is carpeted with them.

More About Beech Leaves

Beech foot, Wapley Hill, November 20th 2008

The wind has changed direction; chopping firewood this afternoon the air seemed colder than it did this morning. The wind was from the east, straight down the valley from the Welsh hills, rattling the last of the beech leaves and the ash keys in the courtyard. The air smelled colder as well, a cleaner smell. Now at 7.30pm it has clouded over so the crispness is gone, and the wind has died, but it is still cool.

A good morning spent hunting for firewood on Wapley Hill. Gunfire and pheasants on the lower slopes, dogwalkers, and horses on the narrow Stansbatch road. In the week since we have been there the beech trees - on long avenues across the hill - have lost their leaves completely; the ground is covered in crisp, golden-bronze leaves, still dry. The paths have disappeared under the leaves, drifting the ground, as if under a light fall of snow with the same sense of vulnerability and impermanency. The leaves had been blown into these drifts and were far more 'solid' than they appear. But there were strange bald patches where the wind is stronger and the leaves don't settle.

It made me realise that the days are still shortening and the sun is lower in the sky every day. Half a mile down the beech avenue the sun came out, horizontal beams deep into the woods, lighting the smooth grey trunks. I have noticed beech trees more than anything this autumn, the beech-colours have been spectacular. And this morning the leaves were everywhere, drowning the path, blurring the definition of the avenue, smoothing everything apart from the trunks rising from the bronze floor like elephants' feet or the claws of giant birds.

A Half-Moon Day

A small moment this morning in the chaos of breakfast; putting bread out for the birds I could see the half-moon through the bare branches of the beech tree and there was a cool nip in the air, but the day felt fresh and silent. Now that we have lost the direct light the daylight has changed and the days are darker.  But for 30 seconds this morning all I could hear were birds - ducks on the Moor, pheasants, sparrows - and see the clear moon in a washed out pale blue sky.

On the way to Ludlow today I surprised a kestrel scavenging on the road; close enough to see tight muscular legs and cream-and-brown speckled underbelly feathers.   And on the way home from Presteigne we saw a sparrowhawk on a telegraph pole; we have seen red kites on the same road.  We drove through a shoot the other day; tweeds and hats and guns and muddy dogs, and beaters emerging from the hedges with braces of pheasants.  A gloomy day, a muddy road, the epitome of November.  

The season is winding down towards winter.  The days are shortening and we have lost the light by about 5pm.  Heavy clothes have become the norm.  I find it strange that at one time I meant to relate my seasons to saints days, lost festivals and old rituals; but instead I record weather changes and bird stories. 

Cascob

In the late afternoon we came home over the Radnor Forest hills and turned off to explore Cascob. The name alone fascinated us; what does it mean?  It is a small hamlet strung out along a long valley road, fields of sheep and small farms, a small river; perhaps the Lugg in infancy.   Unusually the old church was locked but the graveyard was guarded by two large sheep; just a few Victorian graves but the sense that the ground had been used for burials for centuries; mossed stones disappearing underground and a gigantic yew tree.  

As I came out of the church porch I looked up to see a vast flock of starlings overhead, maybe 2000 or 3000 birds, silent but for the beating of their wings, a susurration, almost a sigh.  They were heading for the pine woods over the river.  An astonishing sight, so many silent birds, the last of the day.  

Firewood and Gunfire

Sunlight through beech trees on Wapley Hill last week, before high winds had taken many of the leaves

Up on the hill this morning, foraging for firewood. A cool, wet day, good walking weather. The woods on Wapley hill are enormous, from the old-stand pine woods around the hill fort to the long rides of beech trees that run across the hill like Roman roads, dead straight. Many of these have now lost their leaves and the leaves that are left have lost their shine, their lustre. Perhaps these will stay all winter. With the falling leaves it was possible to see the planting arrangement, the long double row of beeches across the hill, maybe a mile long; Nazca lines of beech trees, invisible from the outside but presumably visible from the air. Some of the beeches on the hill are enormous and so presumably quite old; I don't know how fast beeches grow.

The fields around the woods are set aside at this time of year for the pheasant shooting. The beaters were up in the woods to get the birds back onto the fields - where there is still plenty of cover - and the guns were further down the hill, strung across the field at 40 yard intervals. The dull crack of shotguns; like a plank dropping onto a concrete floor, a short, sharp noise. I wonder what percentage of pheasants survive?

Grey Days and a Full Moon

A trip into Ludlow to see stoves and advent calendars; we bought neither.  But we managed to see many of the town's back streets, this eclectic mix of medieval and Georgian houses all jumbled together and no doubt growing over each other.  Quiet roads and chestnut trees.  Central Ludlow is very smart but the town has the usual drink and drugs problems further out.  The journey in through wintry lanes was very beautiful, the hedges shaved by recent hedgetrimming and now losing their leaves, the fields bare and empty.  The days have been grey and sunless, occasionally windy, misty.  We have had a lot of rain recently and many roads have been flooded.  

A lovely walk at dusk yesterday, down the old toll road to the tractors and the view across the valley.  A muddy lane in the fading light, the bare hedges, the day turning cold in a peach sunset with not a breath of wind; it seemed as though the land is turning towards winter.  

Beeches and Leaves

Beech trees, Wapley Hill, early November 2008

I have noticed that in recent heavy rains and strong winds the leaves generally are starting to fall from the trees. The beech in the garden has lost all but a few tufts of branches but this is down to its reaction to light. The beech trees have been spectacular this year; dull golds and fiery reds, shimmering bronzes; all on the same tree. The other dominant colour is an acid yellow from the maples; the trees look lit from within, as if each leaf generates light.

Remembrancetide

Pressed poppies, collected October/November 1998

The tenth of November this year falls halfway between Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day, making a period of Remembrance. I am deeply uneasy with the notion of remembering the war dead whilst doing nothing to prevent wars today; and especially as at the moment we as a country are still heavily involved in two illegal, immoral foreign wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And yet remembering (especially) the Great War seems fitting at this time, perhaps because it as far back as human memory currently stretches. There are at least three British veterans still alive, old men who visit schools to tell their stories to children who are a century younger than they are. Their First World War memories are all the more precious as they have aged and others have died; but it defines a person only by one time of their lives, and that 90 years ago. Perhaps we remember because we all have a Great War family story and like a British Day of the Dead we remember family stories at this time. I don't know.

Ten years ago I wrote a play called 'Third Light' which commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the Great War and dealt with these confused themes. One of the actors, Graham Frood, was old enough to remember the war; he heard the engines of a Zeppelin flying over his house in Stoke and hid under the table with his family; he remembered the engines as they were such a rarity. He also remembered two bonfires in the November of 1918, one for Bonfire Night and one for the Armistice. Sean Halligan, who played a far younger man, helped in selecting a performance venue and we visited Birkenhead Priory with the Wirral's links with Wilfred Owen. On a new traffic island outside was a brilliant flush of blood-red poppies and we picked a handful to press. Today, ten years later, I found them.

And at this time I remember my grandfathers, who both played a part in the first war. Vincent Lewis was a teenage sea scout and spent some time coastwatching on Bolt Head in Devon, possibly the furthest he ever travelled from Liverpool. My mother's father was a corporal in the Royal Welch Fusiliers and was wounded at Passchendaele. We have letters and medals and cap badges and photographs; history I suppose we can almost touch.

An Autumn Afternoon

A typical November day, misty, damp, a chill that seeps up from the ground - the tops of the trees lost in mist - a cold day in the garage with occasional views across to Shobdon Woods Hill, the mist draping across it; a soft day, a day for a long walk, the sort of day that has sudden patches of quiet, a pond of silence unruffled by anything; then a small piping of a bird, unseen, which only deepens the silence. I love days like this, cold and damp and gloomy; they make me think of the autumnal pleasures of firelight and woodsmoke and tea. It is a day for a bonfire of leaves, a day for fathers to burn leaves and wear gumboots. And at 3.30pm it is starting to get dark.

Fifteen years ago this week and next I was in Vancouver and I have been reading my journal; I recorded the same sort of light, a never-quite-bright light, as if the sun is permanently below the horizon.

Bonfire Night

A quiet day here for us.  Another dripping, cold, misty day; cars had their sidelights on all day and it never seemed to get fully light.  It was getting dark at 5pm, a thickening of the mist.  A typical November day.  I found thirty minutes this afternoon to repot the outdoor Christmas tree.  We bought it in Cooksons in Southport about three years ago, a small blue spruce in a red pot.  I love the idea of an outside tree; Christmas as a time of great darkness and tiny lights.  Cold wet hands scratched by the spruce's needles even through thick gardening gloves.  A strangely wintry job to do, a precursor of December and Christmas. Even mixing the heavy compost - made by our own worms, I am proud to say - with grit seemed like the heavy mixing of a Christmas cake.  

No bonfire tonight for us, even in celebration of Obama's victory in the American elections. We've not seen any fireworks either.   Country rituals seem sparser, less intense; more about darkness and silences at this time of year perhaps.   

Thoughts in Early November

A dank morning, cool and wet and misty and dripping. The Kinsham side of the valley is lost in mist. Good walking weather; I love walking in glooms and mists.

A huge swathe of the trees above this side of the valley has suddenly turned a peach-golden. Not deciduous trees but conifers, so I am assuming they are larches as they are (to the best of my knowledge) the only British conifer that is deciduous. A tight, neat patch of colour among the deep greens of the firs and the uncertain mottling of the trees on the wood's border.

November 4th - the Americans elect a new president today - a black president would send an astonishing message to the world and would be a huge step forward for the US; I would vote for Obama.

Tomorrow is November 5th - we won't be buying fireworks for many reasons but the blunt John Bull celebration of light and darkness - even if the origins are forgotten or at least no longer mean anything - is fascinating. The English see no poetry in what they do and look abroad for simple beauty; but they do small beauty nonetheless.

Three Northern Days

Beech tree, Coombes Moor, 30th October 2008 - view from the south; the only leaves are stubbornly clinging to the northern branches.

A journey north on Hallowe'en, pumpkins alongside the road in some places - snow on Shropshire hills and distant Welsh hills - some good river-walking along the Mersey, the light bright and hard, soft against the stones and recycled river furniture sculpture; the astonishment of rusted International Garden Festival barriers/railings, salt-bleached and weathered - the beech trees on the lane to the river still very leafy, obviously not lost the light the way the beeches here have. Some good explorations of derelict/unvisited spaces; more on the landscape writings blog I think. Amazing trees in Runcorn, seeming mile after mile of beech and maple gently golden-red-yellows, unseen, overlooked; a town planted for autumn colour. I was reminded of walks across Runcorn from the Ship Canal to Old Runcorn to the new estates and out to Daresbury; landscape and memory thoughts again better suited to the other blog.

Home this afternoon in a gentle November grey day; we only saw real sunlight once or twice. The beech on the lane has lost 75% of its leaves, because we have lost the direct sunlight and will not recover it until March. Strange and unsettling to be home; three days is sometimes a long time.