Yesterday I found that the undergrowth in the wood has been cleared. The narrow path I usually squeeze down is wide now, the bracken and brambles gone, with only a few brown stalks left to show what was once there, what has been there for years. The trees still made a tunnel overhead, and I noticed how the ivy tangled through so many of the bare branches. The space felt exposed, too spacious; it reminded me of humans. The afternoon sun was low and it cast long shadows, tree branches and trunks throwing dark dramatic lines. I heard a robin, its repeated burbling laugh musical against the squawks of out of sight parakeets.
I climbed a stile to a field and followed the shadows, walking towards the flare of the sun. There was lichen, grey and yellow and beautifully textured on the trees, and, as I reached the top of the hill, small stunted trees, no more than bare clusters of branches, were thick with flaking yellow. The long grass has been recently cut into furrows and I walked the edge of it, on an easy path. There were rusty red leaves on the brambles and I stopped at the edge, where the wood started again, and listened to a woodpecker’s repeated tapping. I go back through the woods towards home. When I get to the boundary between street and field, I find a small patch of snow drops, and carry home an armful of rubbish from around them.
Bonnie Radcliffe 