Began well, with the annual two days coppicing with Paul and Jim on chainsaw, and a possy of volunteers, Phil after some stakes, Pauline and her friend, Mark, Malcolm and E, and their daughter. But most effective of all was Sam, who came on Workaway, and not only learnt the gentle art of coppicing, but got locked down in the woods. He built a wood shelter, filled it with wood I am still using, he made a garden for forest school, then made another garden near the cabin, and he coppiced over an acre of hazel. As I write this, he is back again, January 2021, staying here in East Lodge, after he’d spent the summer and autumn once released from Lockdown, learning how to lay dry stone walls in Derbyshire.
Planted out harts tongue fern and snow drops around the stumpery. White borrage that MJ carefully extracted from our veg bed, and a bit of mint.
Sam showed me Mercury 5 o’clock from Venus, and I think I saw the Andromeda galaxy, my first ever sighting of a galaxy.
The Angel of the Woods finally found her place on top of the felled Ash, secured by …. ‘That’ll stay there’, he said, and I believe him.
March: With news arriving of the virus, Italian wards on our TV’s with upside down people, dieing, a day before the official lockdown, we had an unofficial Vernal Equinox in the woods. Led by Professor Sam, who began with the beginning of the universe, orchestrated by Bo, sung by Leon, we made our way from the Sun to Neptune. Having unfurled the 30 meters of the sun, material sown together by Valerie, Don’t stop me now, began our journey,
May: we began zooming forest school from the wood. I began drawing again, drawing leaves to observe their form and function. Rachelle Wolfe, Sue, Mell, Megan and I.
May: Michael and I re-inacted the famous Pieter Breugle Land of Cockaigne in the woods. Bobji stood in for the pig, with a knife strapped to her. One of the dogs ate the egg twice before the last one was photographed. Naomi came for tea to the wood
June: I began staying a night a week in the cabin. Feeling an expansive thanks each time for Graham, who we had burried just before lockdown.
June 21 Midsummer, we had a modest celebration in the woods, Michael, Roderick and Clare, Bill and Deborah, Rupert, MJ and Jo and Sam and the dogs of course. Air was still. Still no traffic on the roads.
July: Another Sam arrived, Morocco Sam, bicycle Sam. It took me a couple of weeks to click that he was the son of Bryan, who’d kept saying you must meet my son Sam. He’d met Mell at UEA studying Environmental Science, became an activist (3 pages on his DBS!), followed by 11 years with Dr Bike, before going to Morocco and working with a Dutch woman to restore bikes for tourists to use. Sam brings music with him.
Sam made an edge to the lights in the cabin, using the oak. I moved the photographs to the southern apex. Graham’s spirit abounds.
September: Forest School started up again, nervously, tippy taps, and an attempt at social distancing. Dungeons and Dragons.
September/October: Two socratic dialogues in the woods. Glorious light, and space, and how the wood hold us and gives us a freedom to explore.
September: Upshoot Theatre (Darren and Leila) came to the woods, for some romping fun booked out for 2 performances. Memorable conversation between Paul Baker and Bo.
October – I walked from Barry’s oak to the edge of Epping, through the patchwork of wood, edged by North Circular and gyratory systems, homes, and football pitches. I gave Brenden the name of the Hornbeam tree
November – Anne Fellows came to the wood today to talk around a project called Spell songs, words from Lost Words, and potentially doing a performance in the wood.
December – solstice. Michael and I bedded down in the wood, after an evening of fire and food with MJ and Jo, the Green Party, in which Bo stole the show.
Kaliwood 