We discovered hard standing on the first day. First one then another. Altogether there are possibly a total of 5. A sycamore – one of the few – has spread it’s roots to the very edges of one, oh tenatious tree. A modest building emerges – Virginia first saw it – probably the toilet block. Paul finds it earie. A beautiful pink fungi grows inside it.
Spurge Laurel / Daphane Despite the name, this woodland plant is neither a spurge nor a laurel. Evergreen, yellowish green flowers very early in the spring and black berries, which are poisonous to humans but not to birds, present from late summer. All parts of the plants are poisonous. The sap is known to cause skin rashes on contact.
Day 2 to the ponds. Ben and Paul coppiced leggy and overstretched hawthorn, hazel. I make dead hedge.
Paul: ‘I confirm I do enjoy a bit of danger’
Beefstake fungi on the Hornbeam base.
The owls hearing is like a grid reference, with a symetrical ears it marries the two co-ordinate to find its’ pray.
Day 3 the dog walkers arrive, curious. Wendy and John Mendham. She’d been a planning officer and gave encouraging advice. Put the static on the hard standing! She told me the name of the lane – Pest Lane.
A glorious warm September light filters through to the large pond for the first time. Paul coppiced one of the Hornbeams. In a distant meadow cows heads down on the grass.
Day 4 Bob came to lunch at the van. After he left we talked around Ayahuasca, the hallucinogenic plant from South American both Bob and I took in Thailand. Paul says: I don’t want to take anything that alters my senses. I want to be unshakeably aware and see with unlatered awareness.. I remember a young man saying the same to me on the Carpatian mountains. I wonder where he is now.
Paul: Through this life work, I have an unbalanced body, top half and arms as large as legs and legs the size of arms.
Day 5 Bonfire day. Classic laying of the dry hazel. Gill Perkins came by and found an edible fungi. Paul and I collected the gate from HHP and with a bit of bodging, hocked it up. At the end of 5 working days, my hands feel naked without gloves.
Paul chain saws through blackthorn. A sublime September day. Red Bryony vine weaving. Black sloes soft and ripe. Dragon flies.
Evening fire, with Kit, Paul, Tony. We charged our glasses and walked down to the Hornbeam.
‘I love Yew’, said Paul and I had to do a double take with Kit walking behind!
Kaliwood 