Day 180

Wednesday 16 September

I’ve been sat here next to the dog wondering what it is about this time of year that unsettles me so.

Flutes of autumn colour against the backdrop of a milky-grey sky. This is the only patch of the field that has growth. It’s where the pheasants are reared ready for shooting. The killing fields.

I’ve been for a walk, the usual one, about three and a bit kilometres. A circuit around our local lanes and paths. On my way home just beforehand the sunshine was smothered by a thick, milky-grey blanket of cloud. At this time of year and at that time of the day, the light level drops considerably. That also means the length of walking light is also instantly reduced.

The breeze picks up, the temperature drops and my senses prickle. I realise I’m not helping my situation by reading back to back ghost stories at bedtime, but it really is quite unnerving.

The wind-swung branches play short squeeky notes as they rub against each other. At one stage, whilst on the home leg, there are three different sounds from three different directions around me. It’s also darker then.

The corners of my eyes wait to catch a shadow of a dark figure, that I know isn’t there. Crooked shoulders, no features under his black, sack-cloth hood, water dripping from the outstretched fingers. Things crawling inside. That dark figure that isn’t actually there.

The common house spider (Tegenaria domestica) can seem quite intimidating but is simply seeking shelter from the scary outdoors too.

I think much of this is down to the transition between recognisable seasons. Weather is mixed, quick changing; warm safe days, cool breezy nights. Nights that are lengthening. Even spiders prefer to be indoors at this time of year.

It’s a time of general unease. Nowhere is safe. Almost everyone is a scared about what might be coming; some more than others. The fact that some aren’t scared, scares the rest. The world doesn’t feel particularly safe at the moment. The virus is still there, in the periphery of our vision, shadowy with no features. It can’t be erased and we can’t see it but we all know it’s there.

And all this as nature moves us out of summer and in to autumn. So, I conclude that this time of year is always unsettling but this year is particularly so. I’m going to read my book now, it’s the lesser of two scares.

Day 179

Tuesday 15 September

The United Nations has published a report today that backs up other recent research about the threat to biodiversity on earth.

The impact humans are having, due to their behaviours, is putting so many species of plants and animals under threat of extinction. It makes for very upsetting and unsettling reading. My worry is that we won’t take heed and act quickly and as a world.

A superb pair of Parasol Mushrooms (Lepiota procera). These are fairly young as they flatten with age. They are also very edible so I am tempted to pick them and cook them. Never done that before.

It has been very warm today, nearly 30°c making it very uncomfortable at work. I came home and was desperate to get out to walk the dog. The fresh air is a tonic as is Mabel. Stan joined me too and talked about where he wants to go to University.

We only did a small local walk, but there was still plenty to notice. The branches of the trees along the lanes are losing their leaves; it starts with them drying up. That must reduce weight but the branches still remain low, droopy and sad. It is a melancholy sight and sadly, next spring seems a long way off.

We watched a crow seeing off a kestrel that had obviously strayed over the boundary. I think it was the same grumpy crow with the missing feathers again. The one that shooed off the buzzards and the heron.

Some of the early windfalls are scattered under the apple trees. I want to get in closer to see what’s tucking in to them

It got me thinking about our native birds that stick around all year, every year. I am as guilty as the rest in getting excited at the thought of migrants hitting our shores from far off lands. Flying huge distances to feed and breed here, or simply to spend the winter. But tonight I considered the humble crow, robin and kestrel amongst others who hang around; locals who I see everyday. As autumn and winter unfold I am sure they will become very welcome sights and sounds.

Day 178

Monday 14 September

I have found writing a post on a Monday a bit tricky of late. The first day of a new working week tends to be taken up with, well, work.

I love what I do, I really do. But I’d be lying if I said I would rather be working than going for a long walk or taking the dog for a run on the beach. But, I guess that’s what allows me to do those wonderful other things. And there is no doubting that things have never been more challenging than they are right now. We are rising to the challenge though, and I truly feel that everyone involved in education are the current ‘frontline’.

My friends have a birding bug too. Richard and Alison spotted this youngster in a treetop out the back of their house in Dedham. Cormorants often come in land particularly along waterways. If there’s fish, there’s food. A slice of bird-magic to raise my spirits on another tough Monday.

Driving home relatively late this evening I took the back roads. It’s rural, agricultural, dusty and brown. The warm weather we are currently having is baking the ground, just as the ploughs are powering back and forth. The recently harvested fields are exhausted, spent. They have given all they can for another year and are being turned over ready to rest for the cooler months ahead.

The flocks of gulls crowd behind the tractors, seemingly risking life and wing for whatever they can scavenge from what’s exposed.

Something chemical may be added, to do it’s unnatural magic whilst the soil sleeps. Some take a more natural approach. All tend to rotate what is grown. And then, the soil is woken again in the Spring, with the sowing of new seed and the growing of new crops. I realise how much we take our brown earth for granted.

If only…

When I was a child, one of my favourite stories was The Magic Porridge Pot. No matter how much was eaten, more kept coming. Our world really needs one or two of those right now.

Day 177

Sunday 13 September

Things came together at the right time the other day. Twice. And both had a trumpet as a common feature. Actually, Haydn’s trumpet concerto in E Flat. A piece written in 1796 to showcase the technological creation that was the three-valved trumpet.

The right tune at the right moment is always a sublime thing when it happens. When I was a teenage-kid, The Beach Boys on Porthtown beach with my school friends. Black Grape with my mates at the Reading 5’s football tournament in my early twenties. Then, there was Gabriel’s Oboe by Enio Morricone when Dad drove me back to University in Derby across a snow dusted Peak District. A galloping Red Deer ran alongside us to mark that special moment out as super-special, Really neck-tingling that one.

The view across towards the Orwell Bridge in the far distance. I mean, come on….!

Now, I’m no classical music authority but I know the music I like and I am genuinely moved by many pieces. Handel raises my spirits, Mozart generally brings a smile to my face and is quite playful (except his requiem of course) and I look to Beethoven and Sibelius for some drama.

But this particular concerto by Haydn, and the third movement specifically, has been a worm in my ear since Wednesday morning. I was driving to work with the radio on, the delicate trumpet blowing its fluttery notes in to the cockpit of my car. Then in the corner of my eye a flash of brown as a Red Kite sped past, alongside me then over the roof and away.

Before I could get the verbal exclamation out, I maneuvered around the bend in the lanes to be greeted by early-morning September sunshine facing me straight ahead. And Haydn played on. Sheer joy.

Glorious views accompanied by glorious music, in my head.

Then yesterday, at various points alongside the River Orwell, the same melody kept popping into my head. I felt compelled to hum, whistle or even lip-trumpet it out of the corner of my mouth. A skill I am particularly proud of.

It worked as the perfect soundtrack to anything I saw that inspired or simply looked beautiful. Usually a land panorama or water-scape view. The trumpet sings in duet with the rest of the orchestra and chucks out butterfly-wing notes seemingly for fun. So fitting for a morning walk on a sunny weekend in late summer.

Day 176

Saturday 12 September

Oh my, I love Saturday mornings. That feeling, after a challenging week at work, of waking up when your ready rather than when the alarm tells you. Then, a large cup of fresh coffee in bed and a few chapters of my book.

This morning, we went on a balmy, late summer walk just over the Suffolk border. Walking from the Royal Harwich Yacht Club marina at Wolverstone to Pin Mill and back again. I always reach September and think, that’s it, summers over, time to batten down the hatches and light the fire. But, in actual fact, there are still plenty of potentially warm weather days left. You just hope they fall on the weekend. Today was one of those days.

No caption needed.

Mabel was off the lead and running as she should. Smiles were all around. Despite us all managing our own life burdens. We all carry them around with us like emotional backpacks; on some days they feel heavier than on others. Today, I felt I was able to leave mine in the car and forget things for a short while.

I am realising that September, and this transitional stage between Summer and Autumn, is a real sensory blast. The light is dramatically changeable, bright sunshine to overcast grey in seconds. In the mornings and particularly in the evenings, a little cloud can really alter the light levels. The sun is spending more of the day lower in the sky, so is at your eye level for longer periods.

Trees on the edge of tidal waters get a rough time. Whipped by extraordinary salt-flavoured winds that either saturate or singe. There are always going to be a number of casualties lying in contorted shapes. Some alone and some alongside fallen comrades.

But it’s the smells that I am noticing most. When the warmth of daytime dissipates and the cool evening temperature builds, so the smells from the land seem louder. Where we live, onions are being harvested and apples are ripening. Both smells are sweet and warm in the nostrils. Those two smells themselves could identify this time of year, indeed this month.

Day 175

Its been a bonkers first full week back at work. Proper. So much has been crammed into just five days and whereas some weeks can drag, this one has whizzed by.

I am missing the freedom to take myself off for a walk or an explore somewhere. I realise that this is a luxury that only the truly wealthy can afford, or the retired. But it is something that, over the summer, my mind and body have become used to.

Somethings in nature simply make me smile. This jaunty mushroom leaning over the pond at the bottom of our lane.

I’m going to make some time on Saturdays to do a walk or at least get out and about. Tomorrow, Lisa has planned a walk just across the Suffolk border with breakfast halfway round. That will be lovely, but next week I will do the next stage of the Essex Way I think. I’ve got to make some time to witness the prep and execution of the great avian migration.

Watching Gardeners World this evening there was a section all about soil and the fascinating happenings that occur under our feet. Microbes, fungi and microscopic invertebrates that work away under the surface feeding and moving are churning the soil and decaying matter. This, in turn, distributes spores and bacteria and creating waste that ultimately becomes soil.

I don’t know much about what goes on under my feet but it sounds incredible really. And it is so important that we ensure it remains healthy as it literally is the foundation of all life on earth.

Day 174

Thursday 10 September

Thankfully, I’m feeling a lot better today. The weirdness if the world we are living in at the moment is hard to grasp at times. Again, I’m not sure if its an age thing and that I am simply reflecting on what were seemingly simpler times. Or, maybe things are just crackers.

Late summer sun? Early autumn sun? Either way it is very special. The warm days and cool evenings make the smell of apples linger sweetly in the air.

Whatever is the case, I am finding it hard, once again, to come to terms with it all. This was a common feeling back in March, at the lead up and early weeks of lockdown. So, we now have the ‘rule of six’ introduced by the government where only groups of a maximum of six people are allowed to gather. Portugal and Hungary have been added to the growing list of quarantine countries where you have to self-isolate for 14 days after you return. And behind all of this, the R number is now firmly over 1, and the curve of confirmed cases is heading in the wrong direction.

But for me, today had even more disturbing news than all of the above. The World Wildlife Fund has released the findings of a long running investigation into the impact of the human footprint on life on planet earth. What is particularly pertinent to me is that the report spans from 1970, the year I was born, to 2016.

Poppy heads, now open and seeds dispersed. Their job is well and truly done. They look totally empty, in all ways, but retain a natural beauty.

It makes for some pretty grim reading. The headline being that there has been a 67% decline in the global number of vertebrates. But, it doesn’t end there. As a species, we are using the planet’s natural resources faster than they can be replaced. And the earth’s freshwater environments are being destroyed and 84% of their vertebrate population has disappeared.

“Seventy-five percent of the Earth’s ice-free land surface has already been significantly altered, most of the oceans are polluted, and more than 85 percent of the area of wetlands has been lost.” WWF Living Planet Report 2020

There is also little sign of this trend ceasing anytime soon, let alone reversing.

It makes me realise, especially when I was walking around our local lanes this evening, how important it is to look after my own little patch. To stand up when it is under threat, either from pollution in all its guises, or from ‘developments. Building houses on top of green land. It makes me feel ill. But not in the same way as I did yesterday.

Day 173

Wednesday 09 September

I’ve felt pretty under the weather today. Headache, dizziness, feeling sick. Not the obvious signs of Covid-19 but I can’t avoid thinking is it, or isn’t it? Daft really because it just leads to more stress and worry which doesn’t help.

Today, the government has decided to re-impose some restrictions on everyone living in England. People cannot gather in groups larger than six in number. It excludes schools, workplaces and organised sports events. This in addition to the more restrictive measures imposed on some localities such as Bolton.

Common orange lichen. But I will just have to save that for another day.

So, an early night for me. And a briefer post. And I had planned to do a whole post all about lichens!

Instead, it’s a short stroll to the bottom of the lane with Mabel to get some deep lungfulls of oxygen. The apples on the trees are really starting to sweeten the air around our house. A warm day of sunshine makes it so strong.

On our way back the bats flutter over our heads picking off the moths and flies.

Day 172

Tuesday 08 September

Having a pint in a pub beer garden, at 8pm on a weekday evening, is an unplanned pleasure. Its soon going to be too cold/wet/windy/dark (delete as applicable) to do, so we grabbed the opportunity this evening after our walk. We sit and talk about the rapidly increasing cases of the virus and the stresses of keeping people ‘safe’ at work. But somehow, doing so with a pint in my hand and sat in the warm evening air, makes it that little bit more palatable.

Sloping fields are unusual in East Anglia. There must be a river somewhere.

The smoky blue sky of an early autumn evening is brushed with patchy stripes of cloud in various shades of grey. I take a drink and talk briefly of the new walk Lisa has just taken me on. Then I look again at the same patch of sky and everything has noticeably darkened.

The dipping sunshine provides torchlight beams of warm light through the trees and hedgerow.

The walks that we snatch at in these shortening evenings are ever so precious. This one started with low, bright, soft orange sunshine winking through the trees on the skyline. And finished with air, humid and still, with the various smells of home-cooked meals hanging as we walked back, past the terraced housing on the high street, to the car.

Some pictures just exude texture, light and colour at this time of year. Even on a mobile phone.

We started walking through hay meadows and alongside agricultural land the sweeps and drifts up to obvious high points. Langham Church is perched on the brow of the hill.

St Mary’s Church has featured in a number of Constable’s paintings.

Then, through dense woodland that rekindled memories for us both of places visited when we were younger. And further appreciation of how woodland can feel quite sinister at this time of year. Just like a tide can cut you off from the land if you misjudge the tide times. So a woodland can isolate and strand a lone walker when night falls sooner than expected; the slowly dying leaves create a dark canopy of cover. Keeping out whats left of the rapidly fading light.

The sunken lane through the woods is lower than the trees trunks. A very imposing view, looking up at the base of these towering wooden giants.

Day 171

Monday 07 September

Numbers of confirmed covid 19 cases are rising. Yesterday was 3000+, the highest since May 22, and today it was 2900. Deaths are still low, which is being put down to the fact that the majority of cases are affecting the young. This correlates with pubs and clubs reopening, shops and workplaces too. And now schools and colleges, universities are not back yet.

It is expected that we are about two weeks behind our peak. Its all sounding a little too familiar and puts our trip to Italy at risk. It is what it is though, so we will see what happens.

The birds are heading to the hedgerow for berries, seeds and fruits. Hawthorn berries. I am such a fan of the Hawthorn (Crataegus), what a tree.

When I got home, it was just Mabel and me that went for an evening walk. Everyone else was at the gym. We went on a very minor detour to our short walk route. Heading down the field-side of a hedgerow evenly dotted with tall trees. The road side is how we would normally walk it.

Another member of the Rosacae family, the Blackthorn or Sloe (Prunus spinosa). Celtic mythology tells of witches making their flying brooms from its wood.

It was grey above with cloud cover that really felt as if it was keeping the mild air trapped on the ground. There was a slight breeze, enough to rustle the brown paper leaves on the trees. The bark is looking like baked skin, just barely able to stay on the trees.

I have only walked down that side a few times but it does feel uncomfortable. Even Mabel kept stopping and staring into the ever darkening hedgerow. I mentioned in a post a few weeks ago now about places that just feel wrong, like something bad has happened. That field edge is one of those places, for me (and possibly Mabel) anyway.

Blackberries are the fruit of the Bramble (Rubus) on the north side of a hedgerow are smaller and unrippened. Perfect for birds though.

I started thinking what weird thing may have happened there. Where we walk has so much history to it, and bad vibes could stick around. Stop! What is making me write like this? I am a rational person, a non-believer in such nonsense. But. Like I have said before, some places just don’t feel right. As the nights draw in and the weather starts to turn, these lanes take on a different look and feel.