Despite actually being quite keen to get to work this morning, I travelled by the long route. The New Forest is too beautiful to miss at this time of year and, even though many trees have already given up on the whole photosynthesis jive, the custard maple still retains a smattering of leaves and the rest lie, like a sweet vanilla pool, around its trunk.
The roads were blessedly quiet and I enjoyed an unhurried drive, pausing only to watch a lapwing standing on the green and slowing a little to see some huge, half-highland bred cows with horns quite suited to moving pallets.
Last night, in the clear sky, on the way to play badminton, I saw Jupiter shining brightly down. Unsurprisingly, in the second half of November, it was jolly cold as a result.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Sunday, 20 November 2011
The shade of trees
Fluorescent kitchen light and the dawn, softened by mist, in the garden set the two apart, as if from alternate realities. The residue of morning brew stuck to the glass made the division tangible, echoing the mist in an optical haze.
An early newspaper, as much for the walk as the news, took me across the green where the fences and hedges and ponies loomed slowly out of the fog, gaining colour and, it seemed, solidity with approaching steps, only to gently lose it over the shoulder. The first pony, cut first in silhouette, slowly resolved to a rainbow of browns; dark flanks, almost black tail and a mane that almost looked fresh from the colourist, with pale highlights amongst the chocolates. The colours spoke to the genetic hamster in me of ripe autumn nuts ready for winter storage.
With the mist there was, as always, a stillness reflected in the standing water. The only ripples raised by falling droplets from the mossy trees. An interesting reversal against the convention of sheltering trees; beneath their boughs was the only rain.
The still surfaces of pools reflected poorly, asthough they had their own coating of condensation. The surfaces were slightly oily, dusty; perhaps with the particles of slowly digesting leaves that have already given up the exercise of floating and have sunk to rest cold, on the mud.
The noise of an inaccessible aircraft rattled the air a little as my stroll turned back towards the ostensible objective. The engine note rose a little, fell, and then I thought I heard the whine of stage 1 flaps extending. I rather hoped that the pilot knew where he was. It was only with the loss of the aero-engine roar that I became aware of the birdscape. A few desultory twitterings raised above the ambience only for short robin disputes, but by the church there was an early practice for the starlings' spring - clicks and chatters and preludes in keys minor and major.
An early newspaper, as much for the walk as the news, took me across the green where the fences and hedges and ponies loomed slowly out of the fog, gaining colour and, it seemed, solidity with approaching steps, only to gently lose it over the shoulder. The first pony, cut first in silhouette, slowly resolved to a rainbow of browns; dark flanks, almost black tail and a mane that almost looked fresh from the colourist, with pale highlights amongst the chocolates. The colours spoke to the genetic hamster in me of ripe autumn nuts ready for winter storage.
With the mist there was, as always, a stillness reflected in the standing water. The only ripples raised by falling droplets from the mossy trees. An interesting reversal against the convention of sheltering trees; beneath their boughs was the only rain.
The still surfaces of pools reflected poorly, asthough they had their own coating of condensation. The surfaces were slightly oily, dusty; perhaps with the particles of slowly digesting leaves that have already given up the exercise of floating and have sunk to rest cold, on the mud.
The noise of an inaccessible aircraft rattled the air a little as my stroll turned back towards the ostensible objective. The engine note rose a little, fell, and then I thought I heard the whine of stage 1 flaps extending. I rather hoped that the pilot knew where he was. It was only with the loss of the aero-engine roar that I became aware of the birdscape. A few desultory twitterings raised above the ambience only for short robin disputes, but by the church there was an early practice for the starlings' spring - clicks and chatters and preludes in keys minor and major.
Thursday, 10 November 2011
to the tip and back
Unaccustomed as I am to keeping pets, I had a novel time on Saturday, on my way to the waste tip, with a pet mouse. I rather thought of him as a pet mouse, even though I was only a little certain that he was in the car somewhere. I had certainly seen him run out of one of the bulk-bags of garden waste that I had loaded into the back of the car. He jumped from the bag onto the rear door pillar, up to the ceiling and then downwards, to disappear into the pile of rubbish and the mouse-sized holes left by the folding rear seats.
I wasn't wholly surprised to discover that mice were living in the bags, although they had only been on the drive for two weeks, awaiting some time in the shorter autumn days when the bags were dry enough and the waste site open. I thought I saw, out of the corner of my eye, as I loaded up, a running brown creature leave the bag before I moved it. Evidently it had not been alone.
I left the car door open as I finished loading and, once I was at the waste site, I left them open again, hoping that the mouse would find its own way out. No sign of the mouse as I tipped the rubbish, but no sign that it had escaped either.
Once home I put a tidy blob of peanut butter on an old jam lid and placed it in the shadow under the back seats, where the boy's floor litter already provided a deal of cover for furtive mammals (and, on closer inspection, some food too). Checking the lid an hour later revealed tooth prints, so I continued the search I had already begun for the humane mouse trap I've owned since having mice invade my loft in a house I owned 20 years ago. Although I've seen the trap a few times, I couldn't place it. I did manage to find the base of a mouse trap I made for the boys to use in the back garden about three years ago. Youngest son managed to find the matching lid nearby under something else in the garden border. I oiled the moving parts a little to make the door shut reliably, transferred the peanut butter onto the trigger platform and, with little belief in this untested mechanism, made myself busy for a long enough period, so I thought, for the mouse to get hungry and curious again.
Youngest son followed me out and when I opened the car door it was to find the trap closed. I lifted it, unable to tell from the weight whether there was an additional mouse present. I peeled the lid carefully, and there he was, tiny, with beady eyes and whiskers. I handed the trap to youngest who set out to show his brothers. “Not in the house I advised”, putting the car seats back together before following on. Eldest came out to see and, in the porch, there was a scrabbling and the mouse leaped out, and into the hall.
The pile of shoes and outdoor-wear nearest the door finally revealed a small and scared mouse. Eldest cupped him gently, too gently, and whilst trying to get a better look, released him once again, where-upon he ran into the dining room. I was rather getting over the pleasures of having a pet mouse by this time, but after moving a few toys the mouse was again found, although he appeared to be limping a little; I suspect from trying to make an escape behind a hot radiator, since there were now balls of fluff hanging from its base. Mouse was confined now to another ice-cream container, until safely outside, where, after stopping to clean himself, he recovered the full use of all four limbs and dashed into the shrubbery.
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Payne's grey
One week ago a hint of winter crusted the tops of the parked cars and the seasonal scraping routine began, but hardly yet in earnest. Two days of soft ice to clear before another front brought cloud and relative mildness. The clouds have intensified this week and, as well as sculpting the sky in fantastic shapes and shades, have dropped a measurable sprinkle of water.
Monday morning's dawn glowed the garden in a striking colour as I looked out while the kettle filled. The sky showed recumbent pink wraiths, supporting clusters of mushroom caps in payne's grey. The colour theme was revisted this morning, with, as I drove to work, the grey intensifying and the pink tones replaced by pale blues, glimpsed through architectural layers of paler cloud.
A couple of cold nights have loosened the leaves a little, but most of the canopy is still shade, rather than litter. The cherries are going over to brittle brown, but the silver birches still show a light golden fortune in leaf pennies and the sycamores have started to dance across the spectrum, even from one side of a tree to the other. The custard maple has begun its descent towards dessert, showing a very pale yellow on some leaves, like custard made with too little powder.
Alice Roberts is decorating our TV screens weekly with a series on the "origins of us". Her assertion last week was that we are designed, as mammals, to run. Long legs, narrow waist, head supporting ligaments and hairless for effective heat control on the pre-historic African savannas. Quite a convincing argument; perhaps better than Desmond Morris' "body watching". This followed through from one of Bruce Parry's "tribe" episodes in which African hunters achieved their success essentially by out-running their prey, not in a sprint but in a war of pedestrian attrition. Convincing though these luminaries may be on anthropology, I feel they may have been beaten to the conclusion by Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run".
I am uncertain how many landscape painters there may be operating in these times of economic uncertainty. Perhaps their numbers have been swelled by a few bankers on gardening leave. I can only recommend that, if the clouds continue as they have been for the last week, that an investment in the production of payne's grey might be worth your while.
Monday morning's dawn glowed the garden in a striking colour as I looked out while the kettle filled. The sky showed recumbent pink wraiths, supporting clusters of mushroom caps in payne's grey. The colour theme was revisted this morning, with, as I drove to work, the grey intensifying and the pink tones replaced by pale blues, glimpsed through architectural layers of paler cloud.
A couple of cold nights have loosened the leaves a little, but most of the canopy is still shade, rather than litter. The cherries are going over to brittle brown, but the silver birches still show a light golden fortune in leaf pennies and the sycamores have started to dance across the spectrum, even from one side of a tree to the other. The custard maple has begun its descent towards dessert, showing a very pale yellow on some leaves, like custard made with too little powder.
Alice Roberts is decorating our TV screens weekly with a series on the "origins of us". Her assertion last week was that we are designed, as mammals, to run. Long legs, narrow waist, head supporting ligaments and hairless for effective heat control on the pre-historic African savannas. Quite a convincing argument; perhaps better than Desmond Morris' "body watching". This followed through from one of Bruce Parry's "tribe" episodes in which African hunters achieved their success essentially by out-running their prey, not in a sprint but in a war of pedestrian attrition. Convincing though these luminaries may be on anthropology, I feel they may have been beaten to the conclusion by Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run".
I am uncertain how many landscape painters there may be operating in these times of economic uncertainty. Perhaps their numbers have been swelled by a few bankers on gardening leave. I can only recommend that, if the clouds continue as they have been for the last week, that an investment in the production of payne's grey might be worth your while.
Thursday, 13 October 2011
a sharing of water vapour
My car was an autumn thing when I stepped out into the evening gloom yesterday. Parked as usual under the Westerly hedge, where it avoids the early frost of crisp winter evenings and provides both a parking habit and a regular walk to the side door I use to enter the building, it was slightly immersed in the leaf litter that is steadily obscuring the parking bays there. The Tyres appeared mired in a carpet and, on the roof and bonnet, a few stubborn leaves ignored the gentle tug of an attentuated breeze and gravity.
After badminton, or what passes for it in the Wednesday evening group I frequent, and the swift drink that I think is the real reason that some of the players attend, I had a quiet drive home. My own street, poorly served by municipal lighting, was bathed in the light of a near-full moon which shared its gap in the clouds with, what I take to be, Jupiter.
This morning we all shared a cloud, as mist defined the garden view. Only now burning off in a sunlight filtered through thin clouds. My car awaits another cover and I must work while the sun shines and the leaves fall.
After badminton, or what passes for it in the Wednesday evening group I frequent, and the swift drink that I think is the real reason that some of the players attend, I had a quiet drive home. My own street, poorly served by municipal lighting, was bathed in the light of a near-full moon which shared its gap in the clouds with, what I take to be, Jupiter.
This morning we all shared a cloud, as mist defined the garden view. Only now burning off in a sunlight filtered through thin clouds. My car awaits another cover and I must work while the sun shines and the leaves fall.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
The canopies are still almost full, but as the breeze played with the branches yesterday afternoon, I noticed a slow attrition as, every few seconds, another leaf would pull away and drift sideways to the ground. For now, the reformation of the canopy as ground-cover, is not evident. The abandoned foliage is hiding under hedges and in gutters, unobtrusive.
The trees are turning yellow gently, unless red. When I slowed for the custard maple yesterday I saw it still green, but it exists in a well sheltered spot. In fact, I would say that it is being crowded a little, other crowns are competing for its light.
It is another (perhaps the last?) week of mild weather, and although the evening are rapidly shortening, it is still pleasant, for a short while, to walk out in the evening air in a T-shirt; as far as the chippy or to put out the rubbish at any rate. The clouds have been very pretty and low recently, even when tragically lit by neon from below. Last night's full moon peeped through to provide a full atmospheric effect, but I don't remember the stars, or the satellites.
The trees are turning yellow gently, unless red. When I slowed for the custard maple yesterday I saw it still green, but it exists in a well sheltered spot. In fact, I would say that it is being crowded a little, other crowns are competing for its light.
It is another (perhaps the last?) week of mild weather, and although the evening are rapidly shortening, it is still pleasant, for a short while, to walk out in the evening air in a T-shirt; as far as the chippy or to put out the rubbish at any rate. The clouds have been very pretty and low recently, even when tragically lit by neon from below. Last night's full moon peeped through to provide a full atmospheric effect, but I don't remember the stars, or the satellites.
Thursday, 6 October 2011
foals reunited
The end of last week was uncharacteristically warm for the time of year, and I had a snuffle. I slouched indoors for most of Saturday, but felt ready to test myself against the elements on Sunday morning, in pursuit of some contemporary reading. Turning the corner of our road, onto the main road towards the village centre, I realised that I had left the house without a tissue in my pocket. I sniffed.
Another hundred yards and I was following a pony along the road; a mare who was evidently a bit distressed, whinnying and tossing its head around. I guessed it had lost its friends and tried to remember if I'd seen a group of ponies on the green as I turned right, but no. We walked side-by-side a little and then I drew ahead and then heard an answering whinny from a foal; the situation became clearer.
Another local resident was just on their way out to find out what was going on, but I could see that the foal had got itself stuck on the lawn of the electricity board. The pedestrian gate to this property has a broken latch and once in a pony can't open it to get back out. The foal had evidently nosed the gate open and then got trapped. The mare was still a little way off, but now the two were closer, the panic had subsided a little. I propped the gate open and tried to persuade the foal that way, but it skittered along the fence line, failing to see the escape route. I tried to show the gate by walking out and making encouraging noises, but by this time the mare was patrolling the other side and the foal was distracted. I managed to move the mare so that the two could meet at the gate and the foal, after a reassuring nuzzle, walked slowly through the gap. The mare of course, realising the length and quality of the grass on the other side, walked straight in to the enclosure.
I went back in, hoping the foal would stay still, which it did. The mare was easier to corral than the foal, less nervous of humans and probably used to being chased off people's lawns. After a couple of feints, she ducked back out of the gate and the family walked off up the road, keeping close. I was streaming by this time, so I had to improvise with some grass to clean my hand up, before heading to the shops again.
On the way back from the village, by a different route, I surprised a squirrel on a fence. It evidently hadn't planned an escape route from its position of sitting on top of a fence that terminated in an open gateway. The nearest tree was just a shrubby thing and when it leapt in panic it fell straight through the foliage and had to leap back onto a trunk from the ground. I expect it felt embarassed about this all day.
I passed, what I always regard as the most beautiful tree in the village in autumn, an ornamental acer. Tired and emotional with my snuffle, it took me by surprise and took my breath for a second. It looked like a tree dipped, one side, in drying blood and then replanted with hardly a leaf out of place. I plucked one of the rare fallen, stained leaves to take home with me.
Another hundred yards and I was following a pony along the road; a mare who was evidently a bit distressed, whinnying and tossing its head around. I guessed it had lost its friends and tried to remember if I'd seen a group of ponies on the green as I turned right, but no. We walked side-by-side a little and then I drew ahead and then heard an answering whinny from a foal; the situation became clearer.
Another local resident was just on their way out to find out what was going on, but I could see that the foal had got itself stuck on the lawn of the electricity board. The pedestrian gate to this property has a broken latch and once in a pony can't open it to get back out. The foal had evidently nosed the gate open and then got trapped. The mare was still a little way off, but now the two were closer, the panic had subsided a little. I propped the gate open and tried to persuade the foal that way, but it skittered along the fence line, failing to see the escape route. I tried to show the gate by walking out and making encouraging noises, but by this time the mare was patrolling the other side and the foal was distracted. I managed to move the mare so that the two could meet at the gate and the foal, after a reassuring nuzzle, walked slowly through the gap. The mare of course, realising the length and quality of the grass on the other side, walked straight in to the enclosure.
I went back in, hoping the foal would stay still, which it did. The mare was easier to corral than the foal, less nervous of humans and probably used to being chased off people's lawns. After a couple of feints, she ducked back out of the gate and the family walked off up the road, keeping close. I was streaming by this time, so I had to improvise with some grass to clean my hand up, before heading to the shops again.
On the way back from the village, by a different route, I surprised a squirrel on a fence. It evidently hadn't planned an escape route from its position of sitting on top of a fence that terminated in an open gateway. The nearest tree was just a shrubby thing and when it leapt in panic it fell straight through the foliage and had to leap back onto a trunk from the ground. I expect it felt embarassed about this all day.
I passed, what I always regard as the most beautiful tree in the village in autumn, an ornamental acer. Tired and emotional with my snuffle, it took me by surprise and took my breath for a second. It looked like a tree dipped, one side, in drying blood and then replanted with hardly a leaf out of place. I plucked one of the rare fallen, stained leaves to take home with me.
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