So simple

I’ve just sent to the proofreader a PDF of the monthly newsletter I edit. Unless anything is drastically wrong with it, I now have ten days’ or so of grace.

    I can’t wait.

    I love doing the newsletter. It’s given me confidence. I have a role in the village. I no longer feel like a freak with no children and no ‘job’ (except writing, which nobody but another writer understands). I’m thoroughly enjoying getting to grips with Microsoft Publisher.

    BUT, although only supposed to take a ‘few hours a month’ (according to the previous editor), it’s taken over most of my life.

    It’s my own fault. I think about the newsletter all the time and how I can make it better. I care about the contributors. I want more people in the village to read it. I'm scared of not being good enough or making some awful mistake.

    And I’ve lost sight of my other self. My writing self. The self who sees things when out walking that she just has to photograph.

    The self which makes me happy. 

 

Yesterday, I sat on the hill with the dog (as I do), basking in the sun and revelling in the view – all the way to Dartmoor, the tops of which were still sprinkled with snow.

    This is my time, I said to myself. All I have to do is make the decision to allow myself a few moments – or more.

    It’s so simple really.

    Not.

A not-very-good photograph taken last week from the hill when there was a lot of snow on Dartmoor. You might have to use your imagination to see it here however.

Feral

Did you know that elephants, lions, rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses (phew, what a lot of vowels to get right) once thronged these lands, not to mention bears, wolves, wild boar and beavers? Our present natural environment is an infinitesimal fraction of what it once was – and what it could, perhaps, be again.

    Most conservation efforts (in this country at least) go into maintaining artificial habitats. For example our much-prized moorland is in fact man-made semi-desert. That land should – and could – be covered in trees. Preserving it in its current state is like preserving the ranchlands created out of the Amazon rainforest. We tend to think that nature should be returned to the state we remember from our childhood. But it could be so much more.

    So says George Monbiot in his book Feral which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

    And not just for the sake of the planet. For the sake of our purse (surprisingly) and, most importantly of all, for the sake of our souls.

    And I agree.

    Here are some extracts from the book.

   

I want to see wolves reintroduced because wolves are fascinating, and because they help to reintroduce the complexity and trophic diversity in which our ecosystems are lacking. I want to see wolves reintroduced because . . . they are necessary monsters of the mind, inhabitants of the more passionate world against which we have locked our doors.

Ecological restoration is a work of hope.

. . . the large-scale restoration of living systems and natural processes . . . will, I believe, enhance our civilization, enrich and rewild our own lives, introduce us to wonders which, in these bleak lands, now seem scarcely imaginable.

So much environmentalism is negative. We must stop driving cars, buying clothes, eating food from other countries. It’s another guilt-trip, another straitjacket. George Monbiot’s book, while devastating in its account of how much we have lost in just the last few decades, nevertheless to me offers a positive way forward. It’s a vision of the future, and one that fills me with excitement.

And that’s all a pretty poor summary of a complex powerful book. You’d do much better reading it for yourself.

By the way, he calls the book Feral because the word means ‘in a wild state, especially after escape from captivity or domestication’. That’s us – as we could be.

A rest for the soul

‘Christmas is a lovely rest, isn’t it,’ I say to Frog yesterday morning.

    I’ve only been back at work two days and already I feel frazzled.

    I hear Frog hesitating. We're conducting one of our usual long-distance conversations: he's upstairs in the bathroom and I'm downstairs in the kitchen. I know what he's thinking. Several days shopping. Three days walking, two of the walks several hours long. You call that a rest?

    Eventually, after a long silence, comes his answer. ‘A rest for the soul.’

    Yes! I think. That’s exactly what Christmas is.

Sunrise, January 2013

'Now o'er the one half-world . . .

. . . Nature seems dead’ wrote Shakespeare*. He was talking about night, but the words could equally well apply to winter, and they’ve been running through my brain for the last few weeks. (That’s an old-fashioned education for you, when we had to learn chunks of plays and poetry.) Nature only seems dead however, and if you look closely – as I was doing yesterday because I wanted to try out my new camera – there is all sorts of evidence that nature is far from dead, even on a bleak January day.

* Macbeth Act Two, scene I, lines 49-50

Pink and grey-green lichen on top of a gatepost

Holly in the hedge: glossy old leaves and bright-green new ones

The ubiquitous gorse

Lime-green moss on a shady bank

The Somerset Levels, past, present and future

As I say in my New Age Encyclopaedia, Glastonbury in the Somerset Levels has been a spiritual centre for thousands of years. It is said that the first Christian settlement in Britain was established there by Joseph of Arimathea, and in the town today is an impressive ruined abbey. The town is presided over by the ‘tor’, a striking cone-shaped hill. On the top of the tor is a ruined church built over a prehistoric stone circle. A few miles away is Burrow Mump, a similar but less well-known hill, and that was where we went on Tuesday.

 

Burrow Mump has a ruined church on the top, like Glastonbury Tor. I wonder if there was once a stone circle here too.

Both Glastonbury Tor and Burrow Mump are encircled with small ridges. It is said that these are the remains of paths taken by prehistoric people in their rituals but I think they’re more likely to be the result of soil slippage as the slopes are very steep. Nevertheless, in order to prolong our fun, these were the paths that Ellie and I took. Frog joined us at the beginning and then got bored and climbed straight up the slope to the top.

Getting closer. The slope is much steeper than it looks in the picture but you can clearly see the ridges

We’d spent a lovely day shopping and eating in Glastonbury – it really is one of my favourite places, with friendly people and a special atmosphere – so the sun was setting as we pursued our walk.

We were fascinated by the vapour trails. (Ellie, left.)

Tree skeletons and setting sun around the other side of the mump

The Somerset Levels, as you probably know, are below sea level and were marshland until the Middle Ages, so Burrow Mump and Glastonbury Tor were islands. The views from the top of both are 360-degree.

From the top of Burrow Mump this Tuesday, with the trees lit apricot by the low sun. (Ellie, right)

Last winter the Levels did their best to revert to their former state, and here is the same view in January.

More or less the same view last January, with the Levels resembling an inland sea.

Will last winter's weather repeat itself? Will the flood precautions do their job? Or is the area a candidate for rewilding (see previous post) or at least an extension of the current wildlife reserves? Already bitterns have returned to these reedy patches, cranes which (according to George Monbiot) were once as common as seagulls (hence place names with 'cran' in them) have been reintroduced, and the area is famous for its flocks of starlings. More, I say (although I probably shouldn't).

NB The first two pictures were taken with my new camera (which then ran out of memory because I didn't yet have a card installed) and the rest with my old one. As you can see, the colours of the new camera are much brighter than those of the old. I hope I'm going to like them.