March 2012
4 posts
6 tags
March, Sallow.
It seemed to me to be a co-incidence that as I was heading off to draw pussy willow, aspirin was making the news. Willow, the mother of aspirin has been treating man’s aches and pains for thousands of years, and new scientific studies suggest it could also prevent some cancers, even cure them. The forester claims that deer will self medicate on sallow coppice - I doubt he has scientific...
7 tags
March, Pain.
The sixteen hours I spent waiting, with my daughter in unbearable pain, for the hospital to have a free operating theatre, are sixteen hours I hope I never have to repeat. Locked together in despair, we repeated our separate mantras,
it hurts so much…. it hurts so much….
it’s going to be all right…… it’s going to be all right…..
ineffectual vocalisations...
6 tags
March, Strangers.
There are sounds which are familiar here. So familiar, you don’t really hear them. They are all part of the overall picture of this rough, boggy inland spot. The squeak and splash of the otter, the scream of the vixen, the whirr of the wren. A million different noises, all familiar, mostly heard unthinkingly. But last week the soundtrack was altered so considerably that the whole place...
4 tags
March, A New Neighbour's Presence is Rudely Felt
Sadly, early in January, a near neighbour became a next-door-neighbour. He’s a big farmer, that is, he has a big farm. Now that he’s bought the land next to this wild place, he has an even bigger farm. He is a farmer with a fervour. It almost religious. Heroin chic is his preferred style of land management. Flat, windswept prairies of wheat, thin straggling hedge (best, if recently...
