Farewell to this patch

We have been charmed by the Somerset Levels. For 10 years we have explored her tracks and trails and miry ways. This magical, reclaimed land of lake villages and hidden places has woven its spells and shared its secrets with us. It is arrow straight rhynes and hissing reeds. It is lace-towered churches on small hills and great big views. Long legged birds stalk and hide here, safe and secret. Crane, bittern, heron and egret are flourishing.

And we have seen newts and bats and hedgehogs visit our own local, local patch. They are welcome.

But now we are moving on. The house is sold and we are fleeing across the border to Dorset's softly wooded vales. There are new tracks and trails to discover and another local patch to explore. Bilbo has already found hedgerows full of pheasant and partridge and a rabbit warren at the end of the garden. As summer loses her grip on the land, our autumn will be full of new sights and sounds and scents. Farewell to this patch ...

And another local patch

I am sitting at a heavy, oak table on a beamed and shady terrace. There are six oak chairs and an oilskin tablecloth which is spotted lime green and chestnut. The only sound is from the crickets, whirring in the old plum trees. It's called stridulation - that sound they make rubbing legs or wings together - and it conjures up this place. The plums are small, navy blue and dusted with white. Some are have fallen already, forming a raisiny carpet on the prickly ground and little brown butterflies are feasting.

Beyond the wrinkly trees is a rough border of herbs. The lavender and rosemary dance with bright insects: there is a large citrus butterfly with tangerine wing spots; small blue ones; swallowtails and hummingbird hawk-moths. Whip smart lizards lie in the heat, hidden in their cream and brown stripes.

The air is hot and heavy in my throat and eyes. It smells of heat and herbs, dust and pepper. There is patchy, scratchy grass underfoot, pale and littered with dried leaves. The harvest is in and in the distant meadow the bales are sitting fatly, round and golden. Fig trees give a splash of green. Their flat veined leaves are deeply lobed, divided into three teardrop shaped sections, New figs, tiny and pale, cling to the angle where the stem meets the branch.

Coubelous, Caylus, France
July 2019

Local patch 45

Local patch 44

Midsummer's day has passed and, meteorologically speaking, it's all downhill now! These are peaceful days of plenty. Hedgerows are buzzing and thrumming. Soft evenings are spiked with the scent of Dog rose and Honeysuckle. In the fruit garden we gather a quick harvest of early berries and  currants, but there is plenty to share with the birds. The last rhubarb goes into a cheesecake with ginger biscuit base and the house is sweet with jam making.  I love the rows of jewel bright jars, stacked and labelled: summer bottled for another year. On a short, dark day later in the year, we will crack open a jar and let the sunshine spill out, full of lazy promise.

  

Local Patch 43

Last week, it felt like a second chance spring up on the high ground. Hedgerow flowers, that have already flushed, finished and been forgotten down here in the lowlands, are in full force further north. We enjoyed again the primrose and the bluebell.

Back on the Levels, summer is surging forward, relentlessly. Swallows and Martins have nests full of young and the old walnut tree is full of fledgling Great tits. They creep around the bark and practise with their pale, perfect wings.

School life has an innate rhythm too. it is palpable in the dust of the classrooms: one final push. Keep going everyone, nearly there. History speeds up and there is not enough time to fit everything in. There are exams to take and exams to mark; sports days and singing competitions; field trips and reports; prize giving and prize getting; speeches, gowns and clapping. It is bittersweet and a time for looking forward. We say goodbye and good luck and well done. We watch them flex their new, perfect wings. Fly guys, don't look back!

Another local patch

When our children were tiny, we spent two years on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Puddle-suited and welly-booted, they each climbed their first peak as soon as they could put one sturdy foot in front of another. We followed the fell walls, stumbling with them over the tussocky grass and scrambling onto the trig points. They learned about walkers' cairns and fell asleep to the sound of grazing sheep and crying lambs. They knew all the local tractors by colour, shape and name and would spend every Wednesday morning watching them queue at the livestock market opposite our house.

It is a place of wide views and wild weather; a place to get fit in and stay fit for. It feels a little like home and we visit often. At half term our boots were on the fells again. Up in the Howgills, we race up Cautley Spout and on to Calders before reaching the top at Bram Rigg (676m). Ring ouzel, a smart summer thrush, accompanies us, flipping from rock to rock. Like a slim Blackbird, the male has a broad white chest band and yellow bill. It makes its nest on the ground in high and wild places. We are surrounded by upland specialists and summer visitors: Wheatear bounce in the springy turf, Crag martin surf the breezes over the waterfall and there is the ragged cry of Curlew above the tumbling Skylark. Returning via Arant Haw (605m) and Winder (473m), it feels good to get mountain miles into new boots. Off the fell, the gate above the sheep farm clacks shut and sets the sheepdogs barking an alert as we pass. We follow the track into town and emerge onto the main road opposite the Lodge that was once our home. This wild place got under our skin decades ago and it is hard to let go.

Local patch 42

Just after 7 in the morning we are dropped in Aller, the village on the bank behind the house. I clip Bilbo's lead on and we go: through the village to the pub and then left, to the drove road that heads across the moor. Chiff chaff chiff chaff, I set my step to the song of the bird. On these summer runs, he is our pace-maker; it is a good rhythm. We leave the last of the houses and take the lane between the rhynes. Spring is in full swing and we count the greens of the countryside: lime green and pine green; lovat and sage; muted like tweed and bright as citrus. The fields are a patchwork, spreading from the drove, dissected by arrow straight rhynes and punctuated by willow. The landscape of the Levels. Flowers of cow parsley, dead nettle and may blossom are foaming in the hedgerow. May blossom is Hawthorn (crataegus), its scent is strong and fresh and redolent of early summer.

Chiff chaff chiff chaff, my boots pound the road. Mallard ducks take flight from the overgrown rhynes, appearing suddenly from beneath our feet and taking a sharp curving path across the sky, before settling back to the water. Robin and blackbird sing at regular intervals and the tumbling, chattering of starlings on the wires is companionable. A flash of white rump catches my eye and I look carefully to check: it is a bright and chunky bullfinch. Small groups of goldfinch are sparkling with song. There is the high and wild mew of buzzard, the laughing cry of green woodpecker and, on the edges of the soundscape, the cuckoo has returned to the moor.

Chiff chaff chiff chaff, we turn the bend, pull up the hill into Othery, quickly cross the A361 and head down Holloway Road. The cemetery is on our left, bright with remembrance. As tractors pass, we hop onto the verge and stand quietly until they pass. And now we loop back through Middlezoy. There are lambs in the fields, well grown now, they cry sadly and then dash off in a jolly, leaping gang. From the back of the village, we leave the cricket pitch behind and take the badger track across the fields, choosing our exact route according to the cattle that guard the gates.

Chiff chaff chiff chaff, the warblers have kept me company along the way. They have played a soundtrack to our run, encouraging us on, a metronome for our feet. We take the footpath between the horses and jump the style into the village again. The stone lacework of Othery church is before us, rooks are cawing and clattering in their churchyard nests. The rusty green of the horse chestnut leaves are stretching  and shivering their new-born fingers. And the chiff chaffs replay their song, in step all the way.