Tag: nature writing
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19/12/22 – Snow melt
Now the rain is melting the snow, but a few days ago everything was ice. The pavements were ridged with glass, the roads thick with compressed snow and criss-crossed with tyre marks. I went again and again to the woods, down through the tree tunnel, where the branches curve over the sky at every level…
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11/12/22 – Frozen birdbath bubbles
This morning I took a hammer to the bird bath. I started with a wooden spoon to break the ice and let a robin drink, but the ice wasn’t a crackable layer as it had been before; it was solid, bubbles suspended below the frozen surface. I used a hammer to break up the ice…
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4/12/22 – Ghost leaves
Back at home and there are ghost leaves in the garden. The green flesh has yellowed and fallen away, leaving the intricate web systems exposed. Their skeletons are more beautiful than when they were fully fleshed. The Japanese maple in the corner is rustling with a fiery orange red, and the grass is tall, half…
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Mawddach Residency – DAY 12
Today we swam from the steps, walked down into slapping water, opaque and almost milky. Somehow the cold clutched tighter with the sudden descent, but the waves were low, and we swam out to Jeff, buoy number two. Emily had to be forsaken for the day. When we got back everything disappeared in grey. Low…
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Mawddach Residency – DAY 11
Today it rained and the sky was grey and the water was grey and all of it was moving all the time, the water rippling, the air swelling, the clouds filling, the mountains dancing back and forth as the clouds fell back, pushed forward, fell back again. I swam in the morning, alone. The tide…
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Mawddach Residency – DAY 8
This morning the world behind the window went monochrome, the clouds gathering dark in the corners then blowing to fill the sky. Cat came in from sketching and the rain started; heavy, blurring, hailstones whipping the glass. The dark clouds were gone, only grey in their place. The mountains were swallowed by mist, the estuary…
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7/11/22 – Water like Guiness
Last week my brain was full of words, so I stepped outside for a walk. I was staying halfway up a wooded valley, on a steep hill, and the path I took went down. The sky was blurred out by beach trees and turning leaves and I could hear the river rushing down in the…
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30/10/22 – Copper
Just a walk around the block today. So many of the leaves are still yellow, not yet red or orange, and the air feels mild still. I’m looking forward to the biting chill of winter, frosty breath and big scarves and knuckles that crack with the cold. But for now, the virginia creeper is mottled…
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22/10/22- Rutting season starts
A week ago I went for a walk in the woods. Not my local woods, but the woods of a big old country house I used to visit as a child. There were deer there, casually clustering under oak trees near the car park, where people gather at a distance to take photos, sometimes getting…
Bonnie Radcliffe 