I’ve been suffering woods withdrawal, I’m yearning for a dose of the green stuff. It seems like such a long time since we ventured more than a few miles from home to go for a walk in the woods. So I’ve been scouring the archives for unposted photos, stashed away overlooked down the back of the sofa or hidden in the depths of a forgotten rucksack. Epping Forest has been out of bounds because of COVID-19 restrictions, but I managed to find a few photos we took earlier, before lockdown. Continue reading “Walking In The Woods (1)”
Category: Maps
Ayot & Ayot Again
Three weeks later and we were back again, to begin again, this time from Ayot St Lawrence instead of Wheathampstead. It was early October and the wasps were still browsing drowsy on the ivy. Continue reading “Ayot & Ayot Again”
Newport, Widdington & Debden
We crossed the footbridge at Newport railway station, over the West Anglia Main Line between Elsenham and Audley End, forty miles north along the route from London Liverpool Street to Cambridge. The track was quiet, the train had just disappeared and taken all the noise and commotion with it. We were left with a few bubbles of birdsong in its wake. Continue reading “Newport, Widdington & Debden”
Galley Hill Green
A way-sign lost in the brambles, another signpost in the passage of time. The year telescopes down with each remembered walk swallowed up by the next one. The days are condensed, each shorter than the last (now getting longer), summer sunshine stored away to illuminate winter hibernation. Continue reading “Galley Hill Green”
Paglesham
This was another walk we’d done before, so once again we were going over old ground, but not necessarily knowing the way. We may have already been here but that doesn’t mean we’d left our mark. We were backtracking but we were not remembered and we all look different every time. Continue reading “Paglesham”
Deacon Hill
We left the car on Great Green by the Motte & Bailey pub in the village of Pirton, not far from our previous walk to Kingswalden Park, attracted back again by the promise of more green lanes and Hertfordshire hedgerows. We left the village and straightaway we were on the Icknield Way. Continue reading “Deacon Hill”
Selborne
Selborne was the perfect rendezvous, being halfway between London and Salisbury. We came down and Howard Phipps came up and we met in the middle, in a field just off Gracious Street, the car park of the Gilbert White Museum, where we transferred the contents of Howard’s car boot to ours, in preparation for his exhibition in the Rowley Gallery window. But not before a lovely sunny walk around the outskirts of the village. And this map, embedded in the vicarage wall, dated 2 June 1953, is as old as I am. Continue reading “Selborne”
The Dorset Coast
The Dorset Coast: from Chesil Beach to the Isle of Purbeck.
Living in south west Wiltshire I am frequently drawn to neighbouring Dorset to walk some of the paths along its geologically varied coastline. I like to draw or paint on location, and I subsequently develop a number of my observations into wood engravings or linocuts. Both are methods of making relief prints, the former being a very English art form developed by Thomas Bewick in the 18th Century, where the engraving is made on highly polished end grain boxwood, which on completion is inked with a roller and printed by hand, in my case using an Albion Press made in 1862. Continue reading “The Dorset Coast”
Epping Long Green (2)
We first discovered Epping Long Green a week ago – Epping Long Green (1) – but then realised we’d only seen a part of it, so today we came back to explore its full length. We started from Epping Green and walked west, retracing our steps from last week as far as this fingerpost. Then we turned around and walked back and continued east to the furthest extent before returning to where we started from. But not before a quick figure-of-eight turnaround in the woods. Continue reading “Epping Long Green (2)”
Pantalica
Sitting here on lockdown, having earlier walked our prescribed exercise route, carefully plotted through burgeoning local parks and side roads, the trees and hedges heavy with blossom and alive with birdsong, more so it seems than ever this year. Strange contrast with the quiet tragedy unfolding around us, the closed doors and closed curtains and the quiet ambulances in the streets. I’m itchy to be away from here but there’s nowhere to go. So I’m looking back through old photos and I find myself in Sicily, two years ago when we were free to go wherever we pleased. We were staying in Syracuse, on the island of Ortigia, and each day we went off in a different direction. On this day we headed inland, due west to the ancient prehistoric site of Pantalica. Continue reading “Pantalica”