The date on the photo is 21 August 2022. It was a Sunday. We started out at Gate No.84, Earl’s Path north, and headed down the Green Ride into the forest. It’s a steep hill but always steeper coming back. Continue reading “Gate No.84”
Gate No.84
Tag: Coppard
Epping Forest x 3
Three walks in Epping Forest, all within the past few weeks. This time of year I can’t get enough of its green light to escape the city. I never lived in a forest but this place always feels like home. Maybe I did in a previous life, maybe we all did, maybe this is the nearest thing to a prelapsarian London. Continue reading “Epping Forest x 3”
The Sound Of Falling Leaves
The plan was for a quick walk around the Lost Pond then back home again. But by the time we got to Epping Forest the low November sun was so bright that we got hijacked by the light and followed its trail through the trees along the Green Ride past the pond and beyond to parts of the forest we’d never been before. The light was exceptional, extra special. It was an ordinary Sunday that had suddenly become graced with a new radiance. I can’t remember a day in the forest like it, and the more I hear about climate change the more days like these become precious and poignant and we must catch them while we can. And all the while there was a gentle flutter and rustle of falling leaves. Continue reading “The Sound Of Falling Leaves”
Coppard
It was Easter Sunday and April Fools’ Day, an auspicious coincidence and ideally a time to be full of the joys of spring. But the day was wet and gloomy, and I was down with a heavy cold. The space between my ears felt clogged with cobwebs and glue. My brain needed rewiring. There was nothing else for it but to visit my favourite tree and unwind my head. The resulting photos might be stitched together like a ribbon of investigation tape, but really they record a circuit of mutual embrace. A step by step two-way revolving observation, the tree’s branches like the spokes of a wheel. Continue reading “Coppard”