There is always a sens of arrival to the Glen, into a place that opens up with every footstep and today’s Spring weather buffeting, sun-kissing, clouding over, opening, by turns lifts this little fold and tuck into a place of enchantment. As I entered from the road a bright promise of a rainbow hovered in the dark sky over the dip of the Glen, once I stepped inside the gates, the clouds became fluffy and the sky was blue.
I walked the perimeter of the brambles to find the places where TC and companion had planted their saplings yesterday, finding little cleared areas with bent stems and neat ground, was tender and sweet, holly, alder, birch all tucked in. remembering to remember where they are, in an attempt at creating reference points for mapping, I lined one sapling up with the floodlights of the Resource Centre, a photo among thousands on my phone what antennae will be required and when to access these co-ordinates – I dismiss the thought – it’s meaningful now, and so it was with the Eco Action Group of 1974 who have surfaced so prominently in N’s research. In fact, as I walked homeward with N today we looked across the football field to the avenue of beeches that may be one of the legacies of that group and it feels good that it’s aspirational still now and not pinned down in fact and record which would somehow lose the vitality of this living moment combined with the shifting past. We all need breathing space. On this perimetre too there were a cluster of hazel shells some cracked open for a feast.
The hemlock is showing its leaves again by the mossy trunk on the river’s edge and the young heron honing his skills in the bayou. For posterity i was capturing the oyster mushroom in the silver birch when a Glen walker stopped for a chat, its all about pending funding and dreaded developments at the moment – there is a palpable air among us that we must be present, on the ball and and accountable for the future of this very special place. The oyster mushroom was taking a backseat in the back and forth between us. I and Ronda passed and we caught up about frogspawn and pond-life.
The witches butter was calling me once more, I hiked it up to Scotland and past the oak and did a dance with the phone and this yellowest fungus creeping along the fiery dead gorse branch as if it held her memory. I headed west, my path through the scrub land pointing to Fairhill and Farranree on the other side – the land of the Kings – water tower and spire piercing the blue sky above and behind, there should be a song for this path and now I remember encountering D singing scales in the gloaming to the North ring barely a month ago. Prised out of his shared flat to practice during lockdown.