Back to back, fresh from 2 hours sleep for two nights, First Light festival, packing in an opportunity to explore, be curious, an invitation from Simon Raven to Doggerland in the private Benacre woodland was intriguing. Simon Raven and someone from Natural England were our guides (each professing ignorance but experience and interest) along the… Continue reading Simon Raven’s invitation to Mesolithic Walking – Benacre aka Doggerland
Category: Around England
East Coast line walk no 1- OultonBroad to Beccles along Angels way.
Mischa laughed when I told her. "So this is your way of relaxing and changing your life so its not so busy?" Somehow I just so needed to walk, and alone with dogs. A 10 mile flat walk on a stunning September day, what could be more perfect? Two things - a delicious picnic (polytunnel… Continue reading East Coast line walk no 1- OultonBroad to Beccles along Angels way.
Kent – Visiting Tim on way to Kate and Dan’s wedding and Dungeness
Tim Dungeoness, where I found Derek Jarman's (1942-1994) home. I find later that he is not known by the younger generation, but by us who remember the AIDs fear and Jarman's on pivotal role in speaking out with his honest campaign about homosexuality, and his public fight for gay rights and his personal struggle with… Continue reading Kent – Visiting Tim on way to Kate and Dan’s wedding and Dungeness
Tim, Isle of Sheppey and Maidens
Tim will always have a place in this wood. After the auction, after the 20 days, after the payment of the complete amount I took a bottle of champagne to the wood, with a chair and a glass, and the dog Kali naturally. I emptied the bubbling wine, walked the edges of the wood, watched… Continue reading Tim, Isle of Sheppey and Maidens
Grimston’s Oak at Epping Forest
The pride of [Epping] Forest is its hornbeams. There is no larger forest of hornbeams in England, nor perhaps in the world. Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England Difficult to imagine now, where I am in little India, Forest Gate, was once the entrance to Epping Forest, and where I run each morning, Wanstead Flats, was the southern… Continue reading Grimston’s Oak at Epping Forest
Road trip North with Louise and then Barry (April 2016)
It was a spontaneous decision begun from a remnant of Bob. ‘Go on a road trip with Louise’ he’d said ‘You’re both unusual and glorious people. You’d get on’ . I hear his words, now that he is gone. We’d collided together, Louise and I, after Toby died a few days after Bob, and begun… Continue reading Road trip North with Louise and then Barry (April 2016)
Wimbledon with Tim – June 25
Lead, treats and notes for Kalis minders: the dog minder who I called Sally but is not, Tom and Kit. Dressed in Valerie's stylish silk dress cut on the bias, and feeling, unusually comfortably and happily like my mother, I set off from my provincial Halesworth station to London. I was not, however comfortable with… Continue reading Wimbledon with Tim – June 25
Spectrums – May/June 2014
Whitstable Camping wild in England. Parked at the end of a cul de sac overlooking the north sea, the mouth to the Thames, a muddy cove, called here a beach. It is definitely estuary, mud not sand, calm tidal mud flats. ’To the beach’ signs, beach huts gayly painted, banked up 3 deep in parts,… Continue reading Spectrums – May/June 2014
Raveningham Garden
A jaunt into the landscape under my nose. With John, (and Kali naturally) we drove to Ravningham gardens. The luxury of high walled gardens, figs and peaches on south facing red brick, vegetables to keep an army in produce, tiered glass houses glass painted in chalk white to stop the sun from burning, Woodland amid… Continue reading Raveningham Garden
Cotswolds – ‘magical uniformity’?
Cotswolds We’re on a carpet jaunt (B’s laying a carpet for a monkey. I’m the mate). So good to get out - been in Suffolk exclusively for too long. A leaflet says of the Cotswolds: ‘Above all, the local honey-coloured limestone, used for everything from the stone floors in the houses to the tiles on the… Continue reading Cotswolds – ‘magical uniformity’?
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